Glorificus to the Sin'Dorei
by Byakugan789
Summary: In the season five finale 'the gift' a random civilian is running from a vampire newbie. Buffy saves him and then heads off to save Dawn. Stop. Rewind. Buffy Saves Jonathan Levinson future member of 'the trio' from a vampire in the Magic Box's back alley, and he helps her save her sister. The world...is doomed. Just not the one on this side of Glori's portal...
1. A fitful begining

Disclaimer: The Warcraft universe is owned by BLizzard North Entertainment and BTVS is owned by Mutant Enemy productions. If you recognized it, it's probably not mine. Now, let's go deconstruct some card deck houses.

~! #$%^&*()_+

Jonathan Levinson whimpered. He had made the mistake of taking his scooter on a trip to shop at the Magic Box instead of calling a cab and been accosted by a vampire. Caught without any of his magic tools, wooden crosses, runed demon controlling bones, even the enchanted boomstick he'd bought from Ethan Rayne after Buffy had stopped him from committing suicide. Now he was backed up to a dumpster in a blind alley with no way out.

"Please don't kill me."

The vampire, chuckled. "Heh, you gave me a good run there. I bet the bloods just pumpin. I bet it's hot. Sweet. Full of fear. That always tastes good."

Then there was the sound of a door opening. Oh thank god!

"Hey, what's going on?" said a soft sweet voice. Jonathan looked over and saw a very familiar blond 20 year old.

"Buffy! God you have no idea how happy I am to see you! Is that the magic box?"

"Uh, yeah. Who are y-"

The vampire however had gotten tired of being ignored and growled loudly. "Get out of here, girlie. This doesn't concern you."

Buffy ignored him further though. "Wait, Levinson? Talk about a blast from the past! I haven't seen you since that macho spell you pulled a year and a half ago! Is this guy bothering you?"

Jonathan nodded vigorously. "He's been chasing me for the last two blocks, Buffy. Please? Could you help me out here? I swear, I'm not going around casting dangerous spells anymore. I just wanted to buy some potions ingredients."

"Fine," the fang-head drawled. "You want to stay, I don't mind a little appetizer."

Buffy smiled and walked towards him slowly, confusing the monster. "Have you ever heard the expression 'biting off more than you can chew'?" The ridged forehead crinkled in confusion. "Um, ok. How about 'Vampire Slayer'?" The creatures stepped forward slightly, confusion now written all over his deformed face.

"The hell you talking about?"

"Wow," she replied, voice bemused. "It's been a while since I met one who didn't respond to that. How about 'oh god, my leg, my leg'?"

Jonathan watched, much calmer and now slightly amused as the vampire lost patience and charged his...friend? Part time savior? It didn't take more than a second till his attacker was screaming out just the same statement Buffy had posed earlier, his leg bent backwards at the kneecap. Seizing the opportunity, Jonathan grabbed a broken pallet slat from the top of the dumpster he was up against and stabbed it through the vampire's back, dusting him.

Buffy looked down at the pile of ashes and huffed. "Been a long time since I met one that didn't know me." She looked up at him and frowned slightly. "Why'd you do that though? I was happy for the distraction."

Jonathan looked at her confused and worried for a second and then his expression cleared. "Righ..! It's the end of the year! Big bad on the loose! I'd heard something about that. You don't ah, think I could help? To repay you for saving me?" She stared at him. "I could be support. I wouldn't get in your way! I know a lot of spells, and I'm getting really good at controlling demons. Whatever you're dealing with I could make it freeze, or confused! I'd say I could banish it, but if it's stumping you and Willow..."

Buffy nodded thoughtfully. "Confused… confused is good. Ok, come on."

Jonathan smiled brightly and tried not to stare too much at the shiny tight leather pants Buffy was wearing as she led him through the back rooms of the Magic box.

"What was going on, Buff?" Levinson heard the voice of Xander Harris. "Trouble outside?"

"No," she replied quietly. "Just a fledgling trying to eat Jonathan here."

He waved to the group hesitantly. "Hi."

There was a chorus of hellos and Xander came over and pulled him over to where he and a curly blond were standing.

"Xander, who is this?" Anya asked at the same time Buffy asked Giles. "Anything?"

"Nothing you want to hear. The, the ritual it's..." The watcher, former librarian, and new proprietor of the magic box replied.

Simultaneously Xander whispered "this is an old friend from highschool, Ahn. He's like me, if I'd never become friends with Buffy."

"So dead then." She replies matter of factly. Jonathan frowns self consciously, trying to shut Xander's rude lady friend out and listen to what's going on. It was always the same. Why was it always the same? Girls were only ever not cruel when either he was writing the rules to reality or they were Willow and Buffy. Speaking of Buffy. "Explain It Again," she snapped.

Rituals? He was good at rituals. They were like D&D. Or math. All you needed to do them were a little patience, a steady hand and a good grasp of basic concepts. He could very probably help with this.

"He runs the comic book store." Xander explained to Anya. "He's also in college and does magic on the side. You remember when things got weird just before we took out Adam right?"

"Oh!" Anya replied, her voice sounding brighter. She grabbed his shoulder, almost causing him to miss what Giles was saying next and whispered into his ear. "Be sure to buy lots. We've a very good stock for powerful warlocks."

"The Key _was_ living energy. It needed to channeled, poured into a specific place, at a specific time. The energy would flow into that spot, the walls between dimensions would break down. It stops when the energy is used up and the walls come back up. Glori uses that time to get back to her own dimension, not caring that all manner of hell will be unleashed in the meantime."

Jonathan's eyes bugged out at this tired pronouncement. Dimensional travel. And not even just some petty summoning either. They were dealing with big stuff. But what was this key? It sounded like a really powerful artifact. He forced a smile down imagining what he could possibly do with such an item. The places he could go! Anything would be open to him if he could have it! And it was magic, doubtless there would be ways to use it that didn't involved the causing of an apocalypse. It was just the demons being chaotic evil again.

"But only for a little while, right?" Anya asked, hesitantly. "The walls come back, no more hell?"

"That's only if the energy is stopped." Willow explained saddly. "How that the key is Human..." She looked forlornly over at Buffy. "Is Dawn..."

Dawn..! Jonathan's mind screeched to a grinding halt. Cute little 15 year old Dawn? Well, that explained why she'd come into the shop asking about comics with heroes who were created by magic rather than born. He'd given her Merlin, Raven and Wonder Woman.

"When blood flows, the gates shall open. The gates shall close when it flows no more." Giles droned out, tiredly, depression and anger permeating his tone. "When Dawn is dead."

" _I Have Places to Be!_ " Jonathan jumped as the voice of an unknown in pajamas cried out, and opened his mouth to speak, before closing it again. Did Dawn really need to die to stop the ritual? Magic he'd found relied just as much on riddles or utterly literal translations as things that would seem obvious when read. It was a lesson he'd learned at cost over the years since he'd been awakened to the truth of their town by the scoobies shenanigans.

"What is it Jonathan?" Xander asked.

"Well, does she really have to die? I mean, magic is sometimes extremely literal as opposed to being logical."

Buffy grabbed Jonathan and turned him to face her. "Make with the explany."

"Well, the passage says that the ritual will only happen while she's still bleeding. What if it literally means that all she has to do is stop bleeding, rather than finish bleeding out? If Dawn _Literally_ _ **is**_ the power, then closing her wounds would be like shoring up the wards around your house. All you'd need is a healing spell or salve. I mean, they're not easy to get, but it's doable… Even in a pinch."

" _Giles!_ " Buffy barked, shoving him away and staring intensly at her mentor, and odd emotion in her gaze. "Is he right? Can stopping the bleeding stop a blood ritual?"

Giles looked taken aback. "Well, um, theoretically. I think. I'd have to check my books, but I don't think it's ever come up. Most blood rituals involved outright sacrifice, and those that don't are typically small and complete themselves before the bleeding is stopped. Even then I don't know any healing spells that work particularly fast. Ah, Willow, maybe you and Tara..?"

Willow shook her head. "Nobody I've talked to. That circle you put us in contact with in Devon was the closest, but you need skin contact and several minutes to close a wound."

Jonathan rocked back and forth on his feet uncomfortably. This could be his chance to shine. If he was right about the bleeding thing then he had a way to provide literally instant health potions, and a slayer eager to help him procure the materials.

"There is..." That was as far as he got before Buffy was on him again.

"Jonathan, if what you have will work, you're my new best friend. Now spit it out."

Jonathan grinned weakly, acutely aware of how close a very hot, very powerful blond was to him at the moment. "How do you feel about guns and demon summoning?"

Buffy's face darkened and Jonathan hastened to explain. "There's a type of demon called the Moh-Ra. They're warrior demons from the dimension Kelsor and their blood has incredibly powerful regenerative propert..."

"Hey, I know those guys!" the Slayer said brightly. Jonathan relaxed greatly as his pseudo captor's demeanor lightened. "Angel defeated one by smashing the gem in his forehead. They eat salt and have forever blood and shit. Angel seemed scared of them."

"Yeah, um, well they can heal just about anything really. But it's really hard to bleed them. Wolverine, y'know?" Jonathan laughed nervously.

"You know? I've always liked you, Jonathan. You named me class protector at the prom, and you're shorter than I am. Maybe you should stick around when we've finished with Glori. We could use another scoobie."

Giles stood slowly, his fists on the table. "I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings," He said, bringing everybody back to seriousness and turning towards him. "But assuming this works, and healing Dawn would stop the ritual (which if I might add is a very big if) How do you propose we get the blood to Dawn and get it into her. And are there any side effects we should know about as well? Aside from that, we should still be thinking about stopping Glori from starting the ritual to begin with. While undoubtedly harder, it is by far the safer of the three options. And that is saying something."

"Two options, Giles. We save dawn before the ritual, or use Jonathan's thingy to stop it." Buffy snapped.

"If Glory begins the ritual…" Giles insisted, pushing on "if we can't stop her…"

"Come on," the Slayer challenged. "Say it. Tell me to kill my sister."

"She's not your sister," Giles contradicted her, his voice little more than a whisper.

The hurt in her voice when she spoke again was palpable. "No. She's not. She's more than that. She's me. The monks made her out of me. I hold her ... and I feel closer to her than …" the blond looked down hiding tears. "It's not just the memories they built. It's physical. Dawn ... is a part of me. The only part that I…"

Jonathan tapped Xander on the shoulder. "What's going on?"

"We'll solve this." Willow picked up, voice soft and comforting. "We will. Don't have another coma, okay?"

Buffy gave her a small smile and Xander leaned in to whisper a reply. "Big demon boss escaped her dungeon, so the monks who were keeping her there turned her escape portal into a person. The monks showed up a couple of months ago and told her that Dawn was created from the slayer, so that the slayer would protect her."

"If the ritual starts, and Jonathan's idea does not work... then every living creature in this and every other dimension imaginable will suffer unbearable torment and death... Including Dawn." The Watcher stated, a pleading look in his eyes.

"But she doesn't look much like Buffy?" Jonathan whispered back.

"Then the Last thing my sister will see is me protecting her," Buffy stated defiantly.

Xander shrugged. "She may be part of Faith, the other slayer."

"You will fail." Giles said in that same heavy tired voice. "You'll die. We all will." Everybody was quiet for nearly a minute, darkness weighing heavily on everyone's shoulders.

"So… she's buffy's daughter then?" Jonathan concluded quietly, looking startled. Xander, Willow and Anya regarded him with shocked expressions.

"I'm sorry." Buffy whispers, voice raw. "I love you all, but I'm sorry."

"Alright. Everybody in favor of stopping Glory **before** the ritual?" Anya spoke out perkily, breaking the tense silence. "Suggestions, ideas. Time's a wastin. Jonathan, you what were you saying earlier?"

"I was, ah, thinking about the time Buffy stopped me from killing myself. If we loaded my dad's rifle with tranquilizer darts filled with Mohra blood we could inject the blood and heal Dawn even if we can't get to her."

"Ooh! Ooh!" Willow cried, bouncing in her chair. "We still have the tranq gun we used on Oz! And all of the ammunitions too!"

Anya clapped. "Right! Anyone else? Willow. I bet you've got some dark spell a-brewin'. Uh, make her a, a, a toad? Little hoppy toad, we can hit her with a hammer?"

The now Identified Tara mumbled something about toads and Willow looked over at Anya. "I have something I've been working on. It was supposed to be a way to fix Tara, get back what Glori took from her. I know that's not the priority right now, but it may weaken her. I mean, she needs the brains to stay coherent, right? "

"Hah, good one red." Spike laughed. "Pull out her brains and she'll be on the ropes. If it makes her anything like your girlfriend here she'll be too busy trying to form a coherent thought to bleed the nibblet. She's only got the one chance, right?"

"Right!" Anya said happily, "We've got the start of a plan, but we need more. She's a god. Let's think outside the box!" The shopgirl finished with a gesture making a square in the air.

As the meeting continued, several more suggestions and quips coming from Anya herself, Jonathan headed for the stairs to the library up top. It had been a long time since he'd considered summoning a Moh-Ra. Fierce warriors capable of taking on vampires and the slayer in single combat according to his reading they were relentless and if killed in any manner other than by smashing the Eye of a Thousand Fates on their forehead they'd only come back stronger tougher and faster with each defeat. The Mohra's biggest weakness and the summoners typical means of controlling them was salt. This was not a weakness like Superman and Kryptonite, but rather one of nutrition. Mohra needed pretty serious amounts of salt each day to live outside of their homeworld and thus they could easily be controlled by those who provided it.

Or, at least, that was how it had worked in the past. In modern times the Mohra had become somewhat recalcitrant, killing warlocks who summoned them if they didn't like the target they were sent to kill and taking up residence in warehouses used by either road working companies or supermarkets where they could have easy access to large amounts of rock or table salt. Thus supplied they'd begin to choose their own targets and become a deadly nuisance to be hunted down with prejudice by demon hunting organizations.

Here though, Jonathan had an opportunity he'd never thought likely before. Willow Rosenberg, one of the most powerful solo witches on the west coast and Buffy Summers the Slayer, were both now aware of the benefits of having your own personal Moh-Ra and in a situation where they'd be invested in helping him succeed in keeping it contained. Anya Jenkins the store owner would probably be willing to give him all the materials he wanted free, for the chance to sell Moh-Ra blood, and Giles the watcher too would be happy to assist for the extra insurance of an easy restorative for his Slayer.

As he searched the the stacks of books though, Jonathan came up against a problem. The Tome of Kelsor wasn't on any of the rows of books in the Magic Box. With an irritated sigh he climbed back down the ladder and saw Spike and Buffy headed out the door. "Where are they going?" He asked Giles.

"Oh, yes, Jonathan. They're going to Buffy's house to gather some more weapons," the Englishman replied distractedly. "Did you need something for your summoning?"

"Yeah, the Tome of Kelsor? I couldn't find it on your bookshelves."

The store owner nodded. "Right. Let me check the inventory for you." He went around the desk, muttering about the 'wretched machine' and began typing. After a moment he shook his head. "I'm afraid we don't have it. I recognize the name though. It's a bestiary of summons for mid level demons. Are you sure you want us to do this?"

Jonathan nodded. "Unless you don't think we have the time?" He asked nervously. "Moh-Ra are assassins, so they're relatively easy to summon. I have the book at home, but I haven't tried it because it noted how they'd been becoming harder to control as commercial salt went on the rise."

"Well, we do have a few hours before we need to find Glori, I could drive you home to pick it up."

The young warlock nodded and the two of them left the shop together.

~! #$%^&*()_+

Jonathan decided that he very much liked Giles' car. It was a red sporty model that spoke of money. Probably a midlife crisis vehicle, but his being able to afford it spoke to the prosperity of the magic box. Giles was pleasant and followed his directions easily so they were quickly back at his mother's house and headed for the side door to the basement. He opened the door and apologized for the mess before heading off to the corner where he kept his arcane materials.

Jonathan's copy of the 'Tome' was on his laptop along with most of the rest of his library so after looking up the relevant page, he unhooked it and put in in his backpack alongside a small bag of monkey knuckle bones soy beans and cherry pits. That done he slipped his boom stick and magic bone into his jacket pockets and went back over to Giles. "I'm done here," He said, taking the man's attention from a pile of tabletop game manuals; the one in the watchers hands being the book of vile darkness. An interesting choice, Jonathan thought, given it had provided some of the creepiest and most interesting characters he'd played over the years. "We need to stop somewhere for salt though. Table salt will work, rocksalt is better, seasalt would be best."

"We have a fair amount of salt at the magic box," he old Brit replied. "How long will you need to set up? We have..." He checked his watch. "Three hours and twenty seven minutes if my calculations are correct."

"I'm...not sure. Maybe fifteen minutes to draw the circle, two or three for the incantations. Normally I'm by myself, so I'd take a few hours double checking everything just to make sure. We also need to have something set up so we can hold the demon while we bleed him in case he doesn't take well to direction. When I was planning doing this on my own I was working out how to set up a small prison cell that could spring up around the summoning circle, just in case, and magical restraints of various sorts. I kept on chickening out though."

"A wise choice perhaps. Demon summoning is not something to be done carelessly, believe me, I know."

Jonathan wondered about that, trying to imagine what sort of mischief a stuffy watcher could get up to, but shrugged it off. He could learn later as he was included in the group dynamic. Preparations complete, the pair of them headed back to the magic box.

~! #$%^&*()_+

Half an hour later, Jonathan stood over the completed diagram. Three monkey knuckle bones inscribed with runes of binding on seven of the eight points of the compass. On the open northeast corner the cherry pits and soybeans formed a double shaded hex mark meant to call specifically for the Mohra. The entire rest of the circle and its instructions were drawn with salt; table salt for the lines, but Giles Anya had graciously provided seasalt for the runes.

To either side of the diagram stood Buffy and Spike, both having recently returned from Buffy's house with melee weapons for everyone. Flanking Jonathan personally, and practically hovering, stood Willow and Giles. "Alright, everybody know their roles?" the short warlock asked.

"Yeah," Spike drawled. "If you bungle things, Slayer and I grab the demon and chain it to the wall."

Willow nodded perkily. "And Giles and I will be helping you with the bindings."

Jonathan nodded, giving Willow a shy smile and Spike a small scowl. "Once it's immobilized, we bleed it. They're about the same size as a human so a pint of blood won't be missed and with their regeneration it'll be good to fight Glorificus with us. If we have to chain it up, Anya can take as much as she wants. It won't die unless you smash the gem in its forehead and it'll continue regenerating so long as you have salt to feed it. Be careful about injuring them though, if they have to regenerate an injury, especially a fatal one, they get bigger and meaner."

"Get on with it, pup." The blond vampire drawls. "We haven't got all night for you to stand around feeling important. Summon the bloody bugger already."

Jonathan glowered at him, but followed suit.

"Azarat custos duarum maceriarum saecula." The salt lit up with a greenish glow. "Hoc quaerit in virtute humilis supplexque kelsor." Jonathan cut open the side of his hand and spilled blood into the center of the diagram. As the words finished the beans began to burn and the pits became glowing coals. "Pariet mercenarius filiis diaboli Moh-Ra." As the last line was spoken a picture of Glori was tossed into the diagram where it caught on fire. A tear appeared in the air above the diagram and spread like cracks in glass before vanishing as swiftly as they had come, leaving a green skinned man in their place.

The Mohra was clothed in black silk, wrapped tight around his forearms, shins and waist, but left loose and billowing everywhere else. He could have been called a stereotyped ninja had it not been that his head was uncovered, showing vivid green skin and an odd facial structure. A pair of black swords were strapped to the 'demons' back and at the center of his forehead was the ruby 'Eye of a Thousand Fates'.

"Warlock," the creature rasped "You summon me for a challenge worthy of my people. To slay the mortal avatar of a god is no small feat..." Then it unsheathed its twin blades in a flash, placing the tip of one under Jonathan's chin and the other under Buffy's.

...Or at least, it tried. Buffy slapped the blade out of the way and Spike dove at it in a flying tackle. The Mohra assassin twisted out of the way, forcing Buffy to dodge the vampire as well and spoke again, as Buffy pressed her own attack. "You insult me however by counting A Slayer among your allies. It is our duty to slay champions, not aid them. For this you shall pay with your life."

Jonathan tried not to whimper too loudly and went for the bone in his jacket pocket while Willow and Giles chanted binding spells and Buffy and Spike engaged the demon physically. Grasping hold of the femur, Jonathan stepped back from the melee and held the bone out, parallel with the floor, and began chanting. "Refugit orbis, qui in medio, carceris fit. Refugit orbis, qui in medio carceris fit..." With the first repetition of the spell, Jonathan's voice clipped and shaky, the demon snapped back to the position it had been in when first summoned. "Warlock." It continued with its introduction only to snap back again as he completed the second repetition and soon appeared to be twitching in place as he completed the third, his enunciation much more confident now.

"Mr… Levinson..." Giles said, taking off his glasses and rubbing them vigorously. "Wh-what precisely did you just do?"

Everyone stared at the green faced ninja demon who was stuttering "War.., war.., war..." and twitching in place, and back at Jonathan.

"Oh, ah, it's my m-magic bone." He answered, quickly dropping his hand. "I put the Mohra in a short focused time loop."

Everybody stared at him.

"I came up with it during that thing last year and after Buffy defeated my nemesis and put the world right again. I copied it down before everything faded. It's meant to allow me to fix mistakes like that stupid enhancement ritual I botched. I wasn't trying to become the center of everybody's universe march before last, I just wanted to have all the same abilities that made you all so cool..."

"Right!" Buffy said, brightly. "Mr Morry's not going to play nice, so let's tie him up. And then you can stop your time loopy thing… so your can bone stop smoking. You really should do something about that."

Jonathan yelped and started blowing on the ends of the bone in a panic. It wasn't very hot, but it _was_ smoking and the tool had never done that before. By the time Buffy and Giles had finished fitting the demon with a set of manacles on the summon the bone had developed cracks along the ball socket and was starting to blacken at the knee. As he let the spell collapse, the smoking stopped and the Moh-Ra began struggling against the bonds holding it. It was too late for the warrior though. Buffy and Spike were already manhandling it over to the wall where they hung it by the shoulders from a bar, it's arms between the bar and the wall and cuffed again to it's feet.

With the demon properly restrained, Buffy went off to practice with Olaf's hammer whilst Giles and Willow helped him with bleeding the demon. Normally there was, on average, 11.5 pints of blood in the human body, and the Moh-Ra wasn't a whole lot different in that regard, but between the creatures regeneration and regular sea salt slurries Jonathan mixed up for it, they managed to get 17 pints over the course of one of their two remaining hours.

While most of the blood was quickly stored in a padlocked refrigerator in Giles secret safe room, Xander, Anya and surprisingly a Robot Buffy ended up getting roped into filling tranq darts with the viscous liquid. Jonathan noticed Spike stealing one of the darts, but said nothing. Far be it for him to question a vampire wanting to be human again, and honestly, it made him much easier for Jonathan to deal with. Humans had fewer senses, less speed and strength and a whole hell of alot more weak points.

And then it was time to go.

As the rest of the Scoobies assembled in the main room in front of Tara, Jonathan quietly slipped back into the training room where they were holding the Mohra. Armed with an athame and a pair of tongs he quickly pried out the gem in the demon's forehead and watched as it disappeared in a sparkle of red light. Holding the gem up to the light Jonathan could feel its power tingling beneath his fingers and slipped the rock into his pocket. Then, just to make sure his research was correct and he hadn't fucked everything up, he checked the jar containing the last of the Moh-Ra blood they'd been injecting into the darts. It was still maybe a third full, same as before he'd banished the demon.

His prize acquired Jonathan hurried to catch up with the rest of the group.

Like most of the group, Jonathan was decked out in gear. Buffy carried Olaf's enchanted hammer. Robo-Buffy, Jonathan grinned as he recognized Warren's work, carried the Dagon Sphere. Xander and Spike carried a set of wicked looking axes. Anya strangely thought to use a Louisville Slugger in lieu of a more effective weapon, but he'd seen her cast spells without need for special materials or preparation before while shopping. Willow needed no explanation, though some of her jewelry was glowing suspiciously. As for Jonathan himself, he had the dart rifle and Moh-Ra blood, his magic bone (damaged as it was) and his 'boomstick' layered thick with hellmouth energy.

The walk to the ritual site took nearly twenty minutes, but they saw it a good five minutes out.

"Shpadoinkle." Xander exclaimed as we got a view of the tower. It looked like a cross between a crane support tower and a demented modern art project.

"What the hell is it?" Anya asked. Nobody answered her, but Giles comment explained it well enough.

"The portal probably opens somewhere up there."

Jonathan unslung the dart rifle and looked through the scope. Up at the top of the tower there was a bridge. At the end of that bridge was a girl. He recognized that hair, though not the fancy dress. "Dawn."

Buffy came over quickly and Jonathan handed her the rifle. Looking through the scope the blond swore. "Rangefinder at 430 meters. Willow, you're up."

"Need anything?" Giles asked the redhead.

She shrugged, getting a determined look. "A little courage."

Jonathan watched in amusement as Spike offers her his flask. Willow turns it down but thanks him regardless and the group proceeds inward. Following Tara, who's working to remove her cast, they're ignored by the rest of the people working on the construction site. As Tara makes her way in the door of the warehouse covering the base of the tower, Willow follows her while Buffy motions to the rest of them to stay back.

Into the room marches a beautiful blond woman with well done up makeup, bouncy curls and a curvy models body. This, much to Jonathan's surprise, is Glorificus. Glory indeed, he thinks, trying not to drool. The 'hell'-goddess marches up to Tara and grabs her by the arm, making her drop a brick she's just picked up and snaps "You. What are you doing here?"

"She's with me!" Willow stepped out of nowhere like a rogue shedding an invisibility cloak and grabbed both women's heads. Blue plasma flowed through Willows hands and Jonathan and Giles cringed as a psychic scream seemed to rip through the construction site. As the silent howl peaked to a crescendo, Willow Glory and Tara were thrown in opposing directions with a clap like thunder.

Buffy turned to robo-Buffy and tapped her. "You're up."

As the simulacrum walked off Jonathan noted again how Warren did damn good work. Hopefully though, getting with the scoobies would mean he wouldn't have to stoop to prosthetics or loneliness. They did seem to keep a remarkable number of pretty ladies around.

"Big day." the unbalanced 'goddess' said, moving as if drunk. "I got places to be, big day. Need a brain." She pauses, seeing 'Buffy' and gets a fox-like grin on her face. "I suppose I could always use yours..."

"Ok then." Robo-Buffy asks, perky as the original. " _Come and get it._ " She challenges darkly. When Glori doesn't rise to the bait but continues to look drunk Robo-Buff continues, stepping forward with the innocent little girl walk. "You don't seem very well."

"Your little witch bitch ... gave me kind of a headache there," she mutters, shaking her head. Almost as an afterthought the taller blonde removes her ceremonial robe, revealing the simple black dress underneath. "But if you think this is gonna last more than eight seconds-"

Robo-Buff interrupts her though. "I noticed you're talking, whereas in your position, _I would attack me_."

Glori's minions come up and pick up the ruined dress. "Oh sweaty, naughty..." Jonathan doesn't give them time to suggest anything intelligent and fires one of the darts into the scabrous creatures eye. It goes down and Buffy foregoes the rest of her quipping to hammer the goddess with a haymaker. There's a flash of light in each fist as the Dagon Sphere the robot is holding does what it was meant to do, repel Glorificus.

"Huh..." the droid says, looking at her hands. "That was a LOT more effective than I thought it would be."

With that, the copy begins to wail on the goddess, the handicap of only having one hand to work with well made up for with the enhanced power of her blows and Glori's non resistance. The rest of the group takes the time to stream into the room, attacking Glori's minions who look, for all Jonathan can tell, like heavily diseased elves. As Jonathan walks in behind the rest of them, who are happily engaged in what looks to be the winning side of a skirmish, Jonathan notices something decidedly odd about the one he took down.

Laying in the place of the minion he'd shot in the eye was a tall fair skinned man with auburn red hair and long pointed ears. Another minion was kneeling beside his friend, carefully pulling the dart out of his friends eye to cradle it in his hands as if it were the most precious and beautiful thing it had ever seen. Jonathan watched in awe as green liquid filled the ruined eye before reforming the organ as if it had never been blown out in the first place.

As the obvious elf lay there breathing heavily and crying, his friend looked up at Jonathan with a look of desperate pleading. "Y-you did this?"

Jonathan nodded numbly and was caught completely off-guard as the creature, almost as short as him, surged off the ground and grabbed him by the shirt. "Please oh magnificent one, do me next! Bless this unworthy one as you have blessed her fellow retch!"

Jonathan looked on dumbfounded as the diseased creature was dragged back off of him by Xander and Spike, still pleading for mercy.

"Hey, Jona, what's with the elf?" Xander asked.

The short boy stared between the two creatures several times before answering. "Ah, Glorificus minions are apparently elves. Sick ones. When I shot the other one to stop him from helping her it fixed him. Now this one wants me to inject it as well." A light-bulb went off in the 20 year old warlock's head and he locked his gaze on the thing in front of him. "Hey, if I cure you and your friends, will you switch sides and promise to serve us instead?"

The mottled grey crippled elf thing nodded vigorously. "Yes, yes, anything you want! We served the Glorificus one because she promised to restore us when she was returned to her rightful legions. We were to be exalted! But you've beaten her..." they all looked over at where Buffy 1 and Buffy 2 were trading blows with the third blond like she was a beach ball "and cured Melorn with a casual malice. All of my brothers and sisters will happily join you for the chance to be whole again!"

Jonathan glanced at Xander and Spike. "What do you two think? We made plenty of darts in case our aim was off or we couldn't get to dawn while someone was up there bleeding her..."

"I dunno mate," Spike replied, shaking the little elf "It just seems like it'd be a letdown, yknow? I joined you guys for a fight. Work of my vampiric aggression and shit."

Xander rolls his eyes. "Give me the dart Jona. Turning enemies into allies? Yeah, that's the sort of thing that tickles my battered sense of humor these days." The two boys nodded and Jonathan unslung his backpack, retrieving a bag of extra darts for Xander. Then he removed one from the bandoleer Willow had conjured for him before the left the shop and stabbed their friend.

The three of them watched in awe as the creature between them began to grow visibly straighter, stronger and healthier, morphing from a diseased hobgoblin to a nearly seven foot tall willowy elf woman with long black hair. Xander whistled in appreciation whilst Jonathan just gaped. The woman, who had Spike and Xander has let go of at this point, began feeling her face and breasts with shaking fingers, tears forming and then streaming from her jewel bright blue eyes. She collapsed to her knees moments after her transformation finished and grabbed Jonathan by the shoulders, kissing the stunned boy; first on the lips and then all over his face, muttering "Thank you, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you" breathlessly between each kiss.

Spike gave a noise of utmost disgust and snatched a handful of darts from Xanders bag before heading off. Xander patted Jonathan on the back, grinning broadly and left as well.

The elf woman, who introduced herself as Belithia Firetree, stood up with him still clutched in her arms and called out something in a language Jonathan could only assume was elfish. It wasn't long after that until Xander, Spike and Jonathan were crowded by a dozen wretched elves each, all clamoring to be healed.

As the chaos of the situation died down and each boy was surrounded by jubilant crying elves Willow walked out of the back of the warehouse tears of her own running down her face, holding the hand of Tara Maclay. Jonathan took the opportunity to escape the attention of the elves surrounding him and went over to the pair.

"It worked then?" he asked.

Willow nodded and looked at her girlfriend who smiled back tremulously. "Yeah. Yeah it did. What's with all of this though? Where did these people all come from?"

"Oh," Jonathan replied, rubbing his arm, blushing crimson. "It turns out Glorificus minions were elves in need of a really good hospital. Your goddess had promised to heal them in return for helping her get back to her dimension."

Willow looked back and forth between him and the elves, who were now gathered behind him hugging each other and singing Jonathan's praises, with wide eyes.

"About Tara." Jonathan temporized, looking at the brunette witch. "Do you think you could do it again?"

"Um, probably." Willow replied looking at her girlfriend.

Tara nodded jerkily, but earnestly if her expression was anything to go by. "Willow explained the spell to me and I remember what the magic felt like. You had someone you wanted cured like I was?"

Jonathan nodded. "I noticed a few of my missing frie...well customers really. I just...know some of the crazy people here. Or I used too. If you could..."

The pair nodded in understanding. "I'm not sure how many we could get, but I'm pretty sure we could drain Glori to fix at least a few of them."

The elves, who were staring at Jonathan rapturously, moved to follow them, stage-whispering to each other, apparently having heard the exchange.

When they reached Glori and the Buffies, Glorificus is lying on her back, blood coming from her nose and ears. "Stop it..." the woman pleads.

"You're a god." Robo-Buffy replied kicking her.

"Make it stop," finishes the real on, bringing the hammer down on her chest with a sickening _**thud**_.

"You're just a mortal, how could you possibly understand my pain?" the prone woman asks, wheezing.

Buffy is about to quip again, but willow stops her with a hand on her shoulder. "Buffy..."

The slayer looks over at her friend sharply. "What?"

"You've won." Tara answered softly. She nodded up to the platform high above them. "Go get your sister."

Willow nods. "We'll handle Glori from here. Just leave us Robo-Buffy and the Dagon Sphere, we'll be fine."

Buffy stares at them for several seconds before nodding sharply and leaving, hammer in hand.

Willow turns to Glori who's smiling bloodily. "Don't thank us yet." She says darkly. "We're not done with you."

Glorificus relief turns to horror as she notices the crazy people gathering behind the two witches, herded into the room by her former minions. Glorificus begins to scream as Willow and Tara join hands and begin chanting, Tara's hand resting on the hell-god's forehead and Willow's pointed out at the crowd.

As cyan fire streams out of Glorificus head to connect to the minds of her many victims another event occurs high above as if to steal away their victory by spite. Unknown to all, even Buffy who's halfway up the tower now, the inhuman warlock 'Doc' stands before Dawn summers, knife in hand.

"Shallow cuts.., shallow cuts," Doc mutters quietly running the knife over the screaming summers girl with deliberate speed and pressure. "Let...the blood...flow...free." He said, making an incision with each word. With the last word however, Buffy appeared behind him with a wet crunch as something broke. "Oh my," the lizard man said faintly as he fell from the tower.

"God damn it." Buffy muttered distractedly as she tugged on the bonds keeping dawn tied in position a giant hammer under one arm. "Come on, Dawnie, let's get you down from here before anything can happen. I've taken care of Glori, everything's going to be alright."

"Buffy!" Dawn cried, as the last rope came loose, and threw herself around her sister. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. I never meant for..."

Buffy squeezed her sister, burying the taller girls head in her shoulder briefly. "It's alright Dawnie. We'll talk about it when we get home." The pair of them quickly fled the tower, unaware of the blood already on the metal grill.

The 'sisters' were nearly at the bottom of the tower, just above the roof of the warehouse, when the first drop hit the portal. The sound of tearing and thunder brought everybody out of the building to stare at the sky, a grim sense of doom settling over them.

"It's started." One of the elves stated, fear and reverence in his voice.

"Shit." Jonathan added, looking worriedly at the tower. Had he given Buffy her own dart before they left the magic box? He couldn't remember. "Giles, Willow, Tara, do you guys have any ideas that could slow this down? I'm going to find Dawn and see if I can stop this."

Before the three scoobies can answer though Belithia speaks up. "We can deal with this, Prince Jonathan. My people became as we were for an unsatisfied addiction to magic. A small arcane storm like this is nothing a few dozen Sin'dorei cannot handle."

Jonathan looks at them in askance and Firetree turns away from him with a soft smile on her face. "Hear me! The manastorm is ours, drink your fill!"

As the elves raised their hands to the untamed energy of Glori's unrealized portal Jonathan rushed off, missing the lightshow as streamers of power flowed down from the globe of light to connect with each of the elves instead of lashing out at reality. Jonathan rushed through the crates and hit the stairs running. He was a quarter of the way up the tower when he saw the sisters. Buffy and Dawn were staring, captivated, at the storm. Jonathan turned to see what looked like a New York Christmas tree made of magical power, streaming gently down from the portal to illuminate a series of points on the ground. Probably Glori's former minions.

Wrenching his gaze away from the brilliant sight, Jonathan finished climbing the last ladder to the pair both of whom were crying for some reason. "Buffy, Buffy!" He called, getting her attention. "Sorry I didn't give this too you earlier." He said, breathless and wheezing, as he held out a dark filled with glowing green blood. "I thought I'd have a clear shot from the ground, but by the time the portal opened you were already too far down the tower."

The Slayer grabbed him into a one armed hug, refusing to let go of her sister, The Key. "See Dawnie? I told you I had a fix. Blood flows, the portal will open. The portal will close when it flows no more. Jonathan gave us this healing...potion, thingy. You heal, blood stops flowing. No need to go back up there."

"But, wh-what if..?"

"No. Dawn, no what if. It will work. It has too." She turned to Jonathan. "Give it to her."

Jonathan nodded and held out his free hand. "Your arm please?"

Dawn nodded hesitantly and held out her arm. Jonathan took it gently and slid the needle into her skin. As flesh swallowed the length of silver Jonathan triggered the compressor on the back end of the dart. Blood mixed with blood and Dawn's wounds began to visibly close. As they did so the roiling storm of power above them began to fade and the small boy removed the needle. "There, all bet..."

As the puncture mark closed and the power behind and above them shrunk to a pinpoint there was a crack like thunder and streams of light reversed from the elves, up to the point of the portal and then back from the point into Dawn...and through Jonathan. Dawn watched in horror as her power lanced through her last minute savior causing him to light up like an X-ray and vanish, not even leaving dust behind to mark his departure.

Also in: forums dot spacebattles dot com/threads/glorificus-to-the-sindorei-btvs-warcraft dot 427463/

And: tthfanfic dot org/Story-31946/Chikageko+Glorificus+to+the+Sin+Dorei dot htm


	2. Things Cascade

For Jonathan, the transition was instantaneous. One moment he was pulling the needle out of Dawn Summer's arm, the next he was on the crumbling ledge of a building, arms pinwheeling frantically as he tried to keep from pitching headfirst into a pile of rubble 8 feet below. For once, his spastic coordination aided him and a desperate thrust of his hips allowed him to land on his ass a few good inches from the edge. His feet hanging over the gap, the backs of his legs and tailbone bruised from the fall, and the short boy quickly scuttled backwards and took stock of himself. Roving hands quickly assured everything was still there and aside from a few bruises undamaged and he breathed a sigh of relief.

The relief didn't last overlong as it pinged in his mind that some of the things in his backpack may have been damaged in the fall. Whipping around and unzipping the bag, he checked the contents. There was no outward damage to his laptop, but he'd need to turn it on to be sure. While most of the ancillary equipment was ok on visible inspection, his mouse seemed to have been crushed. Worse, fragments were coming off of his Magic Bone which he'd stuffed in the pack earlier when it had first begin to show signs of damage. There was probably no repairing it now.

Jonathan considered that glumly. It had taken quite a bit of effort to make, and he wasn't even sure how he'd done it anymore. He was cursing himself now for making such a tight time loop. A more extended trap would probably have worked better. Less stress on the bone, the stress points further apart, less chance of arcane build-up… And it had been such a useful all purpose tool too!

He continued rummaging through the bag. Monkey bones, left over beans and cherry pits were still there, along with a shaker of salt. It wasn't enough for another summoning, but he could deal with that later. The prize though was darts and the nearly empty jar of blood. It had been a third full when he'd snatched it from the magic box before leaving to save dawn, but the jam jar had developed a crack and blood was leaking out of it. Snatching up the glassware he turned it over so that the blood was no longer flowing through and pulled out some of a knuckle bone and the boomstick.

Holding the bone in his palm he began chanting in Sumerian, a language he'd had to learn in order to cast the hero charm nearly two years ago. As the words stumbled out of his mouth, the glowing jade liquid trembled and moved fitfully, rising from where it was trying to soak into the fabric of his pack and flow back into the jar. Finishing he set the jar on the ground and began drawing around it with the stick. Faint lines dark red-black of sparks followed where the stick went and several minutes later he had a magic circle ready. With a few words, in latin this time, the crack in the jar was sealed and ready to return to his bag.

All of that finished he began looking around for the dart rifle. He'd had it with him when the world changed, but it was no longer hanging off his shoulder by the strap. After several minutes he spied it down among the ruins of the floor below. It looked to be in relatively good condition, but it had also fallen. He'd know when he retrieved it.

Turning around he took in his new surroundings, looking for a way down and trying not to panic now that essential and immediate busy work was no longer there to distract him. The building he was in had an open design with what used to be a large floor space made of creamy off white stone. While there were cracks here and there, particularly around the site of the damage, the entire room (walls, floor, ceiling and moldings) seemed to be carved out of a single piece of stone. Spying a door on the far side of the room he quickly headed for it and brushed his and against the wall. No, he thought considering, not carved, the stone under his hand was as smooth as silk, no way something like this was hollowed out without taking decades of work by a talented string of artists. He might have thought it was poured concrete or similar, but the look of the stone as he descended the stone ramp that took the place of a stair, was all wrong. He wasn't an expert, but concrete was fairly distinctive and this looked more like marble.

Most damning for the concrete theory, he thought as he reached the floor below was what looked to be a mosaic pattern of unblemished stone beneath the cluttered filth.

Looking around again, he oriented himself to where he'd come down versus where he'd started and followed along the building's outer wall till he found the damaged section. Picking his way over the shattered remnants of the wall and trying not to slip, he make his way to the rifle. It turned out that it was damaged. The scope was bent out of alignment and several of the glass lenses inside were cracked. Entering the room itself he prepared to perform the ritual he'd used earlier to repair the jam jar.

He'd barely started, having gotten as far as removing the rubble and smoothing the dirt on the floor to make for an easier drawing surface, when a chorus of screams erupted nearby. Startled, Jonathan looked up and twisted this way and that, trying to get an indication of where the horrible cries might have come from. A flash of ethereal blue-white caught his eye out the hole in the building and he quickly slung his backpack and rifle over his back, moving for the shadows of the wall.

Peaking out into the night he saw the light again, this time near the woods. It was humanoid in form and held a pearly translucence that made it difficult to see. He jerked back into cover and held back a whine. Ghosts. Damnit. He wasn't prepared to deal with ghosts. He didn't have nearly enough salt for one. He wracked his brain for what types of ghosts screamed and came up with too many options to be helpful. None of them were good though.

Jonathan cursed himself quietly for not learning more about necromancy. What he did know came from a research binge after a run in with Jack O'toole back in highschool and mostly dealt with smashing zombies. Frankly, there was a frightening number of ways to both create and control them. Worse, and almost offensive to his geek sensibilities, neither Dungeons and Dragons, Half-Life nor Resident Evil had provided any useful basis for said research. Smashing zombies' heads in with a crowbar didn't help unless you take out the eyes apparently, and then blind corpses were still dangerous. It was worse for skeletons.

Wracking his brain for a plan, Jonathan cringed as another screech sounded, this time even closer this time. As the screams continued, moving around the building Jonathan slowly scraped together a plan. Or, not so much a plan, but more of an idea. While he'd never actually made a study of exorcisms or how to combat ghosts, his research on zombies had occasionally mentioned things. If only because a fair percentage of them dealt with voodoo spirits as a medium for raising and commanding said corpses.

Slowly and quietly he unslung his backpack and retrieved the magic bone and shaker of salt. Careful not to leave the shadows of the wall, he stepped out a little and drew a circle in the ground with the grains before capping the container and putting it away. Then, with the bone held tightly in his left he waited for the specter to either find him or leave.

It didn't take long.

The wailing spirit, having explored most of the rest of the house came through a doorway Jonathan hadn't noticed, which was illuminated by her presence. Upon entering the room her gaze snapped quickly to where he waited in the shadows and, with a scream, began floating much more quickly towards him, clawed hands held forward.

Swearing, Jona raised the bone in his left hand and pointed the drum stick he'd spent every day since learning about magic layering with energies from the hellmouth at her, shouting "Vaga Phasma, eximo doloris et requiem facilis!" Wandering spirit, release your pain and rest easy.

It wasn't a proper spell and jonathan didn't know if it would work, but the creature stopped and seemed to stiffen smoke wafting off her form… Until the bone shattered in his hand. The warlock yelped and drew in his hand in to check for splinters and was relieved to find that there were none, despite the utter destruction of his favorite tool.

Then he felt an icy stabbing pain in both shoulders. "I feel as if I should thank you, gnome, for freeing me from the scourge's control. But now that I'm free I find myself in need of revenge..."

Jonathan gulped. The salt line hadn't protected him! It was supposed to protect him. It was in pretty much every book about necromancy! Ghosts don't _do_ salt! "Um, ah, you don't really need to take revenge on me do you?" He asked with false brightness. "I'm sorry about trespassing on your home. I could leave? Or give you a proper burial! It would take alot of work, but I could even repair your house, whatever it takes for you to move on! Just please don't kill me..!"

"Oh, dear boy…" she said as her arms slid deeper into his shoulders. "I'm not going to kill you, you're going to be the instrument of my revenge, not its object." Jonathan felt a burning sensation start in his chest as the ghosts arms got up to the elbow and she was almost embracing him. Then he noticed with a shudder that the movement of her mouth wasn't matching her words and he shuddered. "After all, you're a sorcerer, and we banshee are so much more powerful when possessing a strong body. This is my last time," she said, as she faded away. "I know it's hard to imagine, but one day you'll end up like me." Then she said "Embrace Eternity."

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Back in the magic box the atmosphere was somber. Buffy had needed to carry Dawn the whole way back from the construction site as she had collapsed crying and immobile. Xander had stolen Spikes whisky and chugged it. Having kept up with Jonathan after they'd all finished High School as a means of maintaining 'sane male conversation' largely involving Jonathan's comic shop, the loss hit him hard. The blond vampire had disappeared who only knew where and the crowd of elves were muttering to themselves and glaring daggers at Giles.

The only one who werent down were Willow, Tara and Anya. Willow only knew Jonathan second hand by association with Xander so while she was troubled by it, her happiness for Tara's safe return and pride over the revival of all of the locals brain drained by Glorificus easily overshadowed the pain she felt over, essentially, losing an innocent. Anya on the other hand was elated to have survived another apocalypse, Xander's promise of a proper proposal and the fridge full of extremely valuable blood capable of imitating the elixir of life...after a fashion. After all, it had to mixed with the blood of the person being cured, not drunk. The only thing dampening her spirits was the realization that her almost customer and partner Mr Levinson had vanquished the demon that was the source of the blood before leaving.

"Ms Firetree, was it?" Giles spoke into the dire near silence. "Have you and your people put any thought into where you'll be staying now that you're, ah, restored?"

The dark haired elf woman nodded. "We'll be taking more comfortable accommodations in Glorificus old mansion. _Now that she'll no longer be making use of it,_ " she finished, pointedly.

"Huh?" Buffy broke in before either side could say anything more. "Make with the explainy. I left her pretty solidly squished, but I didn't get the impression that would stop her for too long."

"We," Giles said slowly, "Willow, Tara and I, took care of it, Buffy." Giles replied shortly.

"Mhmm," Willow burbled happily. "Once I knew my spell had worked with Tara we drained her to save all of those other people she'd hurt. I don't think Glori will be coming back for quite some time! Years at least."

"Or ever," one of the elves muttered darkly. "Granted, we would not be angry with him had we succeeded in making use of Glorificus portal, but your lore master Giles slew both the host and the warlock Doc'Rethar before we could make use of them."

"GILES!" Buffy shouted. "Damn it, how many times have you told me not to kill innocents!?" Willow and Tara looked worriedly between Giles and Buffy, but declined to speak up while Xander and Anya gave Giles grimm looks of approval.

"They would never have stopped, Buffy. You know that." He said quietly, his voice weary, but his eyes hard. "I did what I had to, for the safety of everyone. The Doc," he looked at the elves briefly, "Doc'rethar, was a demon who had already tempted Dawn to perform advanced necromancy, and Ben was the vessel created to house a very powerful, very prideful and utterly relentless demon with enough power to claim godhood once. Your success in this most recent battle notwithstanding, you cannot be everywhere at once, whilst Glorificus has superspeed. It is the watcher's training and duty to act a soldiers as well as advisors, and shoulder some burdens even our slayers can not. Should, not."

Buffy glared at him mutinously, thinking of Faith, but was stopped from saying anything by Dawn's hand on her arm. With a huff, she took her sister in her arms and said "this conversation is _not_ over," before heading for the door with Dawn. "Alright, Dawnie. Let's go home."

With that, the group broke up and went their separate ways.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Lynet Windrider stretched mightily and felt a twinge of pleasure as her hosts back popped. It was good to be back in a living body. She felt her host's mind, his soul not ejected due to her careful entry, howling in panic and outrage and frowned. This would get very annoying, very quickly. At least now she understood why most of the Scourge Banshee prefered to eject their hosts and forego the notable increase in power a living body offered offered them. "Silence," she barked, her voice issuing in stereo with her host's. "I have left you alive rather than a wandering spirit, be thankful I have spared you that endless pain!"

Her host felt a flash of cold fear before settling down into sullen fury and Lynet began to examine her new body. Now that she was in it, she knew that it was not a gnome. The head, while containing a superlative brain which was helping clear her thoughts nicely, was correctly proportioned to the body and it was too tall to be a gnome besides. Gnomes were 4 foot tall after all, and this body was nearly five foot four inches. The height of your average dwarf. It wasn't a dwarf either, judging by the noticeable lack of hair, brawn and far too soft skin. Far too short for a human, the humans of Lordaeron considered themselves runts if a grown man was less than five foot eight, and most were six feet, give or take a few inches. _He must be some sort of half-blood_ , she decided. A complete lack of physical toning and slight pudge around the middle were also somewhat offensive. Certainly not a body she was going to keep in the end, but it would serve for now.

Physical inspection done, Lynet moved on to her magical abilities. She had been an enchanter before the Scourge had blown through their lands, accomplishing what even the Horde hadn't been capable of, and was a damn good one in her own estimation. She regarded the fragments of the half-gnomes enchanted thigh bone and still intact pine wand with an appreciative eye and nodded approvingly. The Windrider family had long been shapers of Quel'thalas weather systems and it had been a bit of a disappointment to her family that she had not followed suit, so she took a great deal of pride and professionalism in her work. The bone should have been made either from something stronger or from a creature used to channeling magic, but otherwise was a solid piece of enchanting. An arm bone such as a humorous, perhaps.

She felt a bit of heat, ah what a glorious feeling that, coming from his pants leg and carefully maneuvered her new hand into the pants pocket. Withdrawing it revealed a red gemstone which glowed with a full inner light. Raising her hand to inspect it closer, Lynet received a shock as her ghostly hand freed itself from her host and moved without the gem! She looked at both arms almost fearfully where they connected at the elbow and carefully reconnected the two appendages.

With careful movements and a great force of will she returned the stone to the boy's pocket and closed her eyes. Turning her attention inwards she made an effort to separate her internal monologue from the background noise of her hosts thoughts and demanded _What in the Voids name was_ _ **that**_ _?_

 _A healing gem_ her host thought back, smugly. _I stole it off a demon which had… a number of similar substances. Legend has it, that the gem and others like it can heal even fatal wounds. Get rid of it if you dare…_

Lynet scowled and opened her eyes, no longer focusing on deciphering the mortal thoughts of her host. Damn the midget boy, he was right, she didn't dare get rid of something so useful. Her quest would be greatly eased by not having to worry about losing the advantage of a living possession. Examining the rest of the mortal's equipment, she tried to determine their function. The gun was obvious. Quality craftsmanship too, affirming the idea that the host was at least part gnome, as did the dart-like ammunition.

She wondered briefly if the darts held drugs for capture, potent poisons or something nastier like corrosive acid. Gnomes were crazy like that.

The rest of the bag she couldn't make heads or tail of; although upon deciding to leave it behind she was met with feelings of extreme panic and possessiveness she reconsidered. It would come in useful at some point, she was sure.

Done with her most basic preparations, the banshee became intangible and took to the sky, marveling at the speed with which she now soared. This was but one of the great advantages to suffering the battle of wills involved with maintaining a living host. Banshee could float around freely and mostly untouchable, but when they took over a body they became bound to the physical limitations of the body, expending nearly all of their energy just to move and maintain it, with notable exceptions. Because a banshee's spectral nature allowed them to attack the soul directly, not kicking the host from their body not only meant the energy required to run the bodies was much lower, allowing use all of their rare and dangerous abilities whilst in a host body. A strong living soul could even empower those abilities further, particularly if the host had magic of their own. However quasi-competent her host had been when facing her an hour ago, he had either a strong sorcerous lineage or had lived most of his life living and breathing magic.

And so, they soared.

And planned.

Enchantress Windrider had lived in the city of An'owyn, a glittering jewel of a city built up around a fortress by the same name. Arthas and his Scourge hordes had torn through the city killing everyone in their way as they sought Key of the Three Moons, an artifact central to the defense of Quel'Thalas. Though she had survived the attack and lived to witness the corruption and later destruction of the Sunwell, she had died a torturous death at the hands of the Traitor Dar'Khan Drathir, the elf, _**ELF**_ , responsible for the defeat and death of the elves, serving as his Banshee scout and assassin ever since.

For five years she had been a blunt instrument, her will subsumed, her talents ignored, her pain eternal.

And then she had met her new host. She would have to remember to get the half-gnome warlocks name at some point; but he had freed her. Nearly banished her. With a single spell, her torment had been ended, her ties to the Lich King and that wretch Drathir severed and she had tasted sweet oblivion… But it would not be. She had things to do first. Namely, _ending_ _Dar'Khan Drathir's miserable existence!_

For the last several years, the traitor had resided in the fortress of Deatholme, a grant sprawling necropolis from which the scourge ensured Quel'Thalas remained a blighted lifeless wasteland. Regular hunting parties were dispatched from the citadel up the Path of Damnation to harass Lor'Themar Theron and his camps of survivors. Precisely how the survived without food clean water or magic to feed off of was a mystery, one Lynet and her banshees were regularly dispatched to figure out. Halduron Brightwing's Farstriders had thus far ensured that no reports ever made it back, but their numbers had steadily been declining.

Such things gave her hope. Hope that her people could survive and perhaps reclaim their homeland.

But to more important matters.

Deatholme was nestled into the mountain ridge that formed the border between Quel'Thalas and the fallen human kingdom of Lordaeron. It was protected by an enormous wall of petrified trees, bones of the slain and necromantic magics that would sap the life and magic from any non dead that touched it. While an effective defense against the bulk of mortal armies and mages, it meant little to siegecraft or fliers. Guarding against those with the power of flight were a trio of ziggurats. Squat heavy stone pyramids christened and mortared in blood, their true danger was in the gems at their apex which imprisoned tortured souls collected by scourge troops and necromancers. These souls were used to animate the scourge's troops and draw the souls back in when the vessels had been torn asunder. Worse than that however, when assailed by enemy forces, the souls in the gem could be launched at high speeds to possess the bodies or shred the souls of the scourge's enemies. After that, were the troops currently standing garrison in the fortress. Lynet knew of no logical reason the Lich King did not empty such fortresses and continue his decimation of the living world, but for the first time she was relatively unhappy for such lethargy.

The wall, which was now a danger to her due to her host, could be circumvented by continuing to fly, or if her cover was not blown, simply walking through the open gates. The ziggurats, which were operated by Lich, could be spoofed by walking in side by side with the undead or flying in with other banshee or gargoyles. So long as she did not make herself obvious, the hardest part would actually be fooling the Lich cities residents. To that, she hoped to use the Scourge's own gift against them.

As day dawned however, Lynet began to feel a curious sensation she had nearly forgotten about in the short few years since her death. Exhaustion. Her host had been awake for far too long and her channeling void magic in order to fly was wearing him out further. Her flight was becoming unsteady and as the half-gnomes eyes began to droop she quickly made her way to the withered canopy and landed in a sturdy tree. Best not to chance the ground and be set upon by roaming ghouls, now that she was being required to sleep.

Grumbling, the elven ghost pulled out the fragments of the magic bone that had freed her and began scratching designs into the bark. It was not nearly so good as if she some essences or coalesced mana here to help her, but even with her hosts flagging stamina she had enough for what was intended. Finishing her design Windrider crushed the fragment into powder and carefully poured it into the cracks. Then, retrieving the wand, added a few words in arcana. The bark of the dead tree rippled and flowed, forming a hollow extra trunk the body could recline comfortably in and closed her eyes.

~! #$%^&*()_+

The former Stricken who served Glorificus spent the first two days after regaining their health decompressing. It was hard to believe that it had been fifteen years since they had last had good food, clear minds and self respect. The elves Jonathan had saved using the Blood of Eternity had been the remains of a farstrider company sent through the dark portal with the Sons of Lothar. They had arrived on earth when, on the night before their final push against Ner'zul the world had gone to hell.

Literally.

The crazed orc warlock, the original warlock who had sold his people to the burning Legion and trained the terror Gul'dan, had decided to go one step further and open his world entirely to the demons. Five new dark portals had been opened a week ahead of what their intelligence had suggested and flooded the planet with void and fel energies. All around them was madness and chaos as paladins and priests struggled to erect holy aura against the onslaught of Ner'zul's portals merging and catastrophically failing, dragging the entire continent into the abyss. All around them small portals tore themselves open leading to a hundred worlds and more. Some remained open mere moments, others like the one they had taken, stayed open for much longer.

The company had landed in a forest glade in the Czech republic, a stone abby by the symbol of the symbol of the argent dawn on its roof. They found quickly though that not only did the humans there not speak common, but they had not connection to the light.

In fact, the first person they found who could speak anything recognizable spoke in archaic Thalassian, a language the odd human insisted on calling 'Tolkien'. The human, Konrad Novak, ran the local library and offered to put them up until learned the local language. The sum he asked for, a paltry gold coin per person, had seemed a bargain at the time.

They were wiser now.

Fortunately for Konrad it had not taken long before the hunger drove them to madness. Half of them had degenerated into husks before the elves, never before having been in a world without ready magic, before they figured out what was going on. By that point however, it was too late. Those turned drained the three mages, two paladins and priest who had been part of their company and any chance to save the others was lost.

For the next several years nobody was entirely sure what had happened, but each of them could remember short flashes of clarity where one creature or another dissolved under their fingers, its body stripped of magic to feed the elf packs ever growing hunger. Clarity returned, more or less 11 years ago when they had found Glorificus and his host, Ben Wilkinson. Glorificus had leaked enough magic that merely being in the dark goddesses presence had been enough to feed their magical hunger and for that the haggard elves, once a company, now only three dozen strong, had sworn themselves to her.

For a decade they had performed all sorts of services for their goddess. Providing food, finding accommodations, looting those driven insane by their mistress, providing her gloriousness with luxuries, managing bank accounts stolen for the goddesses victims and liquidated assets and most important by far; investigating the supernatural world for their leader's 'key'. Now their mistress was dead and their sanity and health restored in full, the shoe was on the other foot and they were enjoying the fruits of their labors.

This, in fact, was the group's current point of contention.

"I still think we should be looking for a way home." One elf stated, his hair a rich chestnut color.

"And how do you propose we do that, Athelas?" Asked a silvery blond. "The key can only be used during a rare celestial event."

Another scoffed before speaking around a mouthful of cheap sugary pastry. "Don't be ridiculous, that claptrap ritual was only needed because Glorificus hadn't a clue where her home was in relation to this world."

"And what would you know about it, Starbreeze?" barked another. "You were a paladin before this mess and a cook during it. You wouldn't know a sacrifice from a supplication, never mind the relationship between void touched arcanism and celestial blood summoning."

Jaro Starbreeze scowled at him. "Mayhap not, but fire tree and I were also our old mistress' emissaries to The Wolf Ram and Hart. The trio of corrupted wild gods regularly open and maintain portals to over ten thousand worlds and dimensions. If it's as difficult as using the key in that manner they wouldn't have any of that."

"He's not wrong," Belithia spoke up, walking into the room in an elegant dress blue that probably used to be Glori's "although im not sure we want the Wolf, Ram or Hart having anything to do with our home. While they may not be the Legion, it wouldn't be surprising for them to take the dread titan or his Nathrezim on as clients. They do so love promoting the dark side of the worlds in which they hold ground and when I asked they did not express knowledge of our home."

"What about staying here?" Asked another girl, Seras Goldenglade. "I know the void is strong in this area because of the helmouth, but so is the arcane. Between the ley lines of this world intersecting here and they ley lines of a who knows how many other worlds, the town is absolutely pungent with magical energy."

The group looked at her, considering, before their leader Ranger Lieutenant Meloren Starblade spoke for the first time that day. "What are you suggesting, priestess?"

"I think we should take over the site of the nexus and use it to make a new Quel'thalas here." She replied boldly. "With the proper rituals we can filter out the void energies coming through the breach and flood the ley lines with with the arcane power of a thousand worlds. If the Hellmouth is really as extensive as the demons keep saying it is we won't even be hurting those other worlds. Even better, if we can somehow get ahold of a prismatic core..."

Dieleth Stormbreaker, one of their two resident mages, perked up. "With a prismatic core we could alter the nature of the void energies into that of arcane or elemental earth! No need to filter it out! We could even clean up the local mana pool. That was half the point of the sunwell after all, it's intermediate Enchanting!" Then he deflated. "How are we going to get a prismatic core though? This world isn't precisely a hotbed of magical artifacts and to create such an nexus we'd need an artifact which has been used to channel a variety of different magics. The more the better."

Seras frowned. "We couldn't do that ourselves? Make such an artifact and then strip its magic for the core?"

Gamon Manathistle, their other mage shook his head. "Both Dieleth and I are battle mages. Our experience in enchanting is fairly minimal. We could perhaps seek the aid of the local witches but they did not strike me as very advanced. Powerful perhaps, but skilled enchanters I would not call them."

"It's a pity Jonathan's gone," Firetree grumbled, grabbing a piece of bacon from the table. "From what I've been able to gather as The Glorificus spy, our savior's only real skills _**were**_ summoning and enchanting..."

There was some grumbling at that which was given voice by Killian Strongbow "yeah, well, savior or not, we could be home already if he'd just waited a few minutes more in plugging the key." Everyone glared at him. "What? Between the lot of us we'd build up the energy we needed for a mass teleport. I could feel in our mages minds how it was even enough to cover the distance in both space and dimensions! Then our power leaves us and Jonathan disappears. Who's to say he's not in Silvermoon right now, drinking wine and sleeping on silks?"

Before he could get any further, or be set upon by the rest of the elves, strongbow was grabbed by two of his friends and dragged over to a far corner of the room. With one last glare, Ranger Lieutenant Meloren started giving orders. "We've got a number of good plans here. I want each of you to grab some assistants and begin researching them. We'll make a decision on precisely what to do later. Get to work."

~! #$%^&*()_+

As the peach light of dawn peered through a hole in the trunk where Jonathan slept, the displaced warlock awoke to a gnawing feeling of hunger. He could feel the presence of the banshee Windrider in his head fangirling over once again feeling proper hunger and tried to move. His limbs twitched and trembled, but for the time being it seemed he was still trapped, a prisoner of the dead elf within his own body. Jonathan grumbled. This whole experience was turning into quite the philosophical abject lesson in what not to do with ones magic. How you could never be too prepared and why you shouldn't used damaged spell components when your life was on the line.

If he got out of this alive, the first thing he was going to do after kissing the ground was binge read all of the magical texts he'd downloaded into his computer. Then he was going to put together a ritual to absolutely scour the land of any undead.

Being locked up in your own head was one hell of a way to nurse a grudge.

 _Do you have any plans for food, gnome?_ Jonathan was startled out of his musings by the ethereal mental voice of his captor.

 **No,** he sent back, **I didn't exactly plan for this, you know.**

 _Being here, or getting possessed?_ The voice asked, impishly. Jonathan glowered, but thought on the problem.

 **Is** _ **everything**_ **here dead?** He asked.

 _More or less._ The ghost replied. _I never did ask your name. So long as I'm using your body I should have something to call you. Referring to you as the half-gnome, the warlock or the host gets uncomfortably third person after a while._

If Jonathan could have he would have stared at her in consternation. It did however give one hopeful line of thought. Whatever else the ghost was, it wasn't reading his mind. **I am Jonathan** he replied. No need to tell her his whole name, such things had power in magic after a…

 _And I am Lynet Windrider, formerly senior enchanter from An'owyn the third gate of Quel'Thalas and more recently Banshee of The Scourge._

Ooorrr… not. If that wasn't an invitation to take control of a ghost back home Jonathan didn't know what was, but here his captor was, giving out her name and credentials as if they were supposed to impress him.

 **Pleased to meet you, Lynet Windrider enchanter of An'owyn, now get the fuck out of my body.** Unfortunately, nothing happened despite his trying to leverage all of the magic he could spare into the order. Lynet did laugh at him however.

 _Sure! I'll let you go the moment Dar'Khan Drathir's soul is shredded beyond even the repair of the Lich King and I have his head on a pike as my own personal toy._

 **You don't ask for much…** The boy grumbled.

 _Indeed. Now onto more important matters. Food. As a banshee I can support your body and take care of its needs like sleep and food in the same way as the felsworn or others who have developed to the point of being more power than flesh, but that will consume more of my power than I am willing to part with, so, did you have any stash of supplies or method of summoning food we could use to take care of our current dilemma? Besides which, I very dearly want to taste something again._ She added that last as an afterthought.

Jonathan's brow screwed up in thought. There were a number of spells to create food, both substantial and not, but most of the ones that were real food involved summoning (stealing) it from somewhere else and the others depended on you being a half decent cook. Given he'd always preferred chinese takeout and the greater majority of his successful cooking recipes were really magical potions, he didn't trust any of those to help.

Then he remembered the blood in his backpack.

 **Hunting,** he replied. **I have a way to purify the meat, so I just hunted and fished while I was here.** It was a bald-faced lie of course, but it was also a test, one that succeeded.

His captor however was stunned. _That's what you have in your bullets! A potion to combat the undead plague? How does it work?! How effective is it? Elune's saggy tits, you have no idea how useful that could be to my people! Can you make more of it? Of course you can, why else would you think you could depend on it to get you through the Plaguelands and the Ruins of Quel'Thalas? Oooohhh…._

Jonathan's face twisted involuntarily into a demonic grin. _Is the process painful to the physical undead?_ Lynet asked slyly.

Jonathan remembered how Buffy had said that Angel was afraid of the stuff. **Probably.** He agreed absently.

Lynet almost split his face in two as the grin stretched wider and spoke aloud, their voices in stereo. "Let's go find ourselves a big fat deer to test this on, friend Jonathan of Gnomregan. I have the feeling this is the beginning of a bueatiful friendship..."


	3. A meeting of minds

AN: For those of you who are confused about the Moh'ra, their blood and third eye, and imagine that the mechanics I'm allowing them is simply too powerful, I would ask that you should go watch the Angel Season 1 Episode 8: I will remember you, where the Moh'ra are first introduced. Their blood resurrects Angel as a living human Liam and banishes the blood demon Angelus in a flash of light after Angel and the Moh'ra's blood mix on a wound. Bringing back the dead was precisely what it was designed to do; though it was more of a "fuck you" than a useful tool type item. While we do not know it it could bring back a simple corpse or not, I'm choosing not to stretch its powers that far, leaving a few specific requirements for its use. Blood transmission and an animating spirit among other things.

Disclaimer: Angel and BTVS belong to Mutant Enemy and Joss Whedon. Warcraft and all its subsidiaries belong to Blizzard North Studios. If you don't already know this, weep, for it means you can't make any money off fanfiction either.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The first deer they found was a fawn. Nearly as tall as Jonathan, the flesh was still mostly on it's bones, but the stomach had been ripped out and the blood long drained. As Lynet went to inject the creature with the dart Jonathan sent her as strong a feeling of disapproval as he could. The banshee set them both back and turned to listen to him, confused.

 **That's not going to work,** the warlock said the moment he had his captors attention. **While the Essence of the Moh'Ra will could possibly fix the meat, the body is desiccated so there's no blood left to transmit it. Use the Eye of a Thousand.**

 _The what? You mean the ruby? Why would a healing gem be called that?_

 **Because while it's embedded in a Moh'Ra's forehead it acts as a third eye. That's not important right now. Put the gem on the fawn's hide and I'll help you channel mana through it.**

Jonathan got blasted with a strong sense of suspicion from the ghost. _You're not trying to exorcise me, are you?_

He blushed slightly, feeling a little sheepish. **The thought had occurred to me. It's my damn body after all. But i've decided I'm more interested in… other things… You know the lay of the land for starters and I find myself lost and stranded without sufficient transportation.**

Which was true, if not everything. As he'd slept he'd calmed down and had now come to the definitive conclusion that he was most definitely not on earth. Or any dimensional analogue thereof. He had no idea how to get home, find friendly territory or even if his ability to summon and bind protectors would work at all. Ignoring that he was sorely lacking in materials, the only things he was sure about were his thoroughly destroyed magic bone and the boomstick.

He was going to have to think up a new name for his wand though. Now that he no longer had the hellmouth gushing out energy for him to infuse into the rod he had no idea when he'd be able to recharge it, so it's power was now too precious for frivolous blasts of raw power.

Or was it? This area he was in seemed to be simmering with a power Lynet's presence had begun familiarizing him with. But if it was, as he was beginning to suspect, the power of death; would blasting an undead creature with bolts of it hurt them or just make them stronger?

Mentally he shook his head and watched carefully as Lynet did as instructed. With the Eye of a Thousand Fates resting warmly in his palm he could feel the hold the banshee held over his limb steadily weakening. He could seize hold of the arm and slamm the gem into his chest, exorcising the bitch and demanding new terms; it wouldn't be hard… but how did he know he could succeed? He'd felt the compression in his soul when she'd slid into his body, oh so carefully. Heard her warnings that Banshee normally exercised the bodies original spirit when taking their form. He could believe it. Would she agree to his demands? Attack him? Leave him where he was with no protections? Bring more undead back with her to kill and raise him as a mindless slave to this Lich King?

Somehow, he wasn't ashamed to say he took the coward's way out. As their hands separated and he took control, Jonathan channeled his mana through the stone and into the deer, watching in amazement at the speed with which it was restored. Cracked bones knitted back together, furred leather pulled together and transformed from grave dust grey to a healthy brown and ravaged desiccated meat plumped, reddened and flowed to connect ligament to bone. Jonathan moved the stone slowly across the surface of the animal, healing and renewing the necrotic flesh until finally, with an unearthly howl, the spirit of the deer separated from the corpse and stood above us.

Lynet stared at the ghost first with sadness and then shock as instead of streaking away as she'd expected, it walked off slowly and faded first from eyesight and then from her banshee's death-sense.

 _We will not be using this stone on Dar'Khan._ She said forcefully. _A peaceful death is too good for him._

 **Don't worry, that was mostly me. Remind me to show you The Book Of Vile Darkness some time, it's got some really… creative ideas on how to apply healing magic. I think you'll approve** the human thought back as he continued to repair the carcass. **How about we set up a fire and get to cooking? I for one am fucking starving.**

Dry dead wood sparked easily and soon the meat was being cooked. After Lynet had eaten their fill, Lynet used a pinch of salt and a spell to dry the rest of the meat and pack it away for later. Life required food, and periodically.

As the pair of them continued on and Lynet avoided the constantly increasing number of wandering undead, Jonathan was paying close attention to how the magic of his possession worked. An incomplete knowledge of necromancy had gotten him into this particular mess, remaining ignorant would not get him out.

The first type of 'undead' they had to actually deal with during their flight south weren't actually undead but rather, airborne golems. The 'Gargoyle' were granite statues vaguely similar to the ones that adorned churches back home, but animated by a poisonous green energy that Lynet feared. While they could gather this energy into their mouths and spit bolts of it, their favorite method of attack was to become solid stone statues once more and fall through the air like siege missiles, landing on victims or buildings with crushing force. According to his ghostly companion, many of their great mages had fallen this way as they stood in place working grand spells that might have saved Quel'Thalas.

Fortunately the constructs had little to no noticeable intelligence and ignored Jonathan whilst Lynet flew them through the 'ghostland' skies. Feeling vindictive, the former elf dove for the ground and retrieved a solid mace from a pile of unused corpses. The weapon shone with a dull light and burned mutely in their hands, but did not resist when they became ethereal once more and took once more to the air.

The enchantresses strategy became apparent quickly. In a special irony, the banshee would drop back into solidity overhead of her targets and fall with high shriek that made his throat raw. Meeting them with the swing of her hammer and disrupting their magic with the scream, they smashed the golems heads to gravel, sending cracks through their bodies. Sometimes they would miss; the magic destroying cry causing the gargoyles to fall early or by Lynet mistiming their fall, while other times they tore instead through the stone bats wings instead of the head and body. Either way after each strike she would catch them with ghost form and return to flying south. Ever south.

Over the next day and a half the pair had to stop on several occasions; to eat, to sleep, and to rest and recharge Jonathan's magical stamina. Channeling magic for spells and rituals could be exhausting, constantly channeling death magic to phase halfway out of reality and fly was brutal. The pocket where Jonathan kept the Moh'Ra's ruby Eye burned with a constant heat as their journey pressed on.

Shortly past noon on the second day they began to find Banshee and Wraiths in the air as well. Wraiths, Lynet explained, were spirits that had either been torn apart by the scourge or had formed from congealed death magic. When bound by necromancers, they served as the eyes and ears of the Scourge Commanders. This, of course, presented a problem. While his captor knew what their new obstacles did and how they were formed, she didn't know if they could detect the difference in her allegiances.

And knew they could detect Jonathan's life force. ...If he got close enough.

 _Do you think you could free them as you did me?_ She asked her host, standing in meditation on the branches of a tall tree.

 **...I don't think so, no. I mean, if I had my magic bone, or perhaps some chicken feet blessed by one of the death gods, but with what I have…** He paused in thought, reviewing his supplies and what he'd been learning from feeling and observing the magic of this new world. It was similar to the magic around the hellmouth, especially when working with vampire or mummy parts, but without the chill taste of shadow magic or the foul aftertaste some of the nastier demons left behind.

 **I could maybe use the monkey knuckles to summon a Kurgal soul eater, but they're not the most friendly or, y'know, controllable types. I don't have the materials for anything better.**

 _Better?_ Lynet asked, disgusted. _There are better types of soul eating monsters?_

Jonathan supposed it would be a valid fear for a ghost and tried not to feel a smug vindictive pleasure at where his thoughts were going. It wasn't hard, most soul eating types were just as happy to eat living souls as dead. **Sure, there's the Mok'Tagar, they're a pretty spineless race of immortal scholars who consume souls to gain experience or hide among a world's denizens. The victim's soul can be recovered fairly easily but if left with the Tagar it eventually becomes part of them and has influence over them just like if it were an original part of the personality. Then there's a number of holy orders who collect souls of the dead so that they don't keep wandering around. Supposedly they send them on to the next life, but if you put in an order to the office of Wol…**

 _Alright, I get the picture! The trolls here do something similar as a means of enchanting things. And that's not even scratching what the Lich get up too. ...We still need a way to get past them though. The only living among the scourge are necromancers who have not yet ascended to Lich, Death Knights who betrayed the light before suffering their first death, and captives the other monsters here want to turn into specific types of undead instead of the rank and file ghouls. Hold still and don't resist, I'm going to need to modify your body if I'm to gather the necessary materials._

Jonathan first went cold and then exploded. **YOU'RE GOING TO WHAT?** His thoughts screeched at his captor.

 _Flesh shaping,_ she replied matter-of-factly. _Hosted banshee devote a fair portion of their energy to maintaining the vessel they're possessing. Ner'Zul intended it to aid with infiltration of the noble class, but Drathir and Menethil made such measures more or less unnecessary._

 **But what are you going to do to me?!** Jonathan worked to keep the whining out of his voice with fury and outrage. He was pretty sure it worked, given he was feeling a fair amount of both.

 _I intend to trade your fat stores and the Jerky in our pack for denser muscle,_ she replied, _I'd like to add some height and reach as well so I can fight as I'm used too, but we left the uncorrupted bone samples a day's journey back and I don't trust you not to exorcise me if I try to use that stone to to make more. Now settle down and quit whining, or I'll go much further to make myself comfortable, like realigning your bones and organs into a female configuration. I think you have enough flesh to recreate myself when I was in my 30's. That's 16 by human and gnomish standards._

Rather than quailing as she'd expected though Jonathan's mind stuttered and then went to the pervert zone as his earlier outrage warred another idea. **Were you pretty?** **I could use the confidence boobs, er boost. I mean boost. Ah...**

Jonathan grinned internally as Lynet quickly went back to the 'control seat' Ignoring him and muttering to herself. Crisis averted. He still had no boobs to play with which was a pity, but it was better they weren't on him. ...well, not unless it was something he did on purpose...bad brain!

After several more perverted geeky tangents Jonathan turned his attention to the elf's plans. She'd decided to return to her roots as an enchanter and forge a costume that could fool the scourge into thinking she as a Death Knight. Windrider still intended to modify his body some so that any necessary fighting would not be totally on her power as a banshee, but any plans to turn him into an adolescent elf girl were either quelled or left to the part of her mind he couldn't see. Which...was most of it, admittedly.

Landing in a tree, Jonathan watched intently as the banshee began eating their food stores ravenously and manipulating death magic to take advantage of the incoming material. Death Magic, or perhaps he should call it decay or destruction magic, broke down the meat and belly fat before moving them to nearby muscle groups. Those too were then broken apart on the cellular level and reassembled in a new pattern, stronger and tougher than before. A process that should have been intensely painful mostly felt cold and creepy, like static electricity, slime or an itch where you can't scratch at it. There was some pain as an angry red power flowed out of the stone, hissing and clashing with the necrotic power as it broke things down, but the pair of them quickly started to work together as the first sinew began to be rebuilt. Jonathan growled a little in frustration because it made observing the process more difficult, but between what he was seeing now and what he had seen before with their first meal he had an idea he might be able to do something similar with the stone alone.

In the end he went from thin with a major paunch to thin with ripcord muscles just showing under slightly tight leathery skin. His bones had also been hardened, bringing in large amounts of carbon. Lynet showed him what she had done with monkey knuckle, indicating that the structures were now black and glossy as well; something the Lich King apparently did to some of his favored skeletal minions making them much harder to kill with sword or hammer and better able to channel magic besides.

After that, she took the monkey bones and crushed them to powder. Jonathan winced at the loss, he'd taken weeks to carve those bones with runes and layer the magic of the hellmouth into them so they could act as communicative foci. Lynet however had another use for the magic dense material. Using the dust she began to draw patterns in a swooping curvy language and poured more death magic into them, drawing it from the area around them. The bone powder crackled with dark green power and became flat bone-white symbols on the ground as if they had been grown that way. Not done yet, the elf acquired a fallen limb from a nearby tree and lay it on the pattern.

Speaking, not in the strange but somehow completely understandable sounds she normally made, but in yet another language he had never heard but somehow understood; Lynet began describing a weapon. A thin pair of curved elf blades Jonathan's geeky mind labeled a cross between a Machete and a Kopesh. The words were harsh and twisted the tongue, but with them she described their weight, the curve and thickness of the blades, how they should be balanced and the piercing points, swept both forward and back. As she spoke the wood warped and flowed and broke into two powerful looking blades, each which should have been considered a hand and a half sword in their own right. Dead power flowed into the weapons turning warped wood to glittering tigers eye and making the edges crackle with a broken grey light that promised death.

The process, which had started at dusk, came to a close under the light of a full moon, hanging high in the chill sky. Lynet picked up one of the blades and shivered as the chilling power of the weapon sought to deaden Jonathan's arm whilst the Moh'Ra's ruby in his/her pocked sent burning streams of power though his body to restore feeling and circulation. Jonathan prayed quietly that the gem would not crack under the pressure and almost missed where the enchantress went next.

Breaking the diagram she had built, Enchantress Windrider crushed the bones once more and began sprinkling the dirt and bone chips along the flat of the blade. Using one of the large chips as a pencil she began writing in the powdered surface, more flowing curvy letters like the ones that had originally made the circle. Once she was done, grey light from the blade's edge seeped into the trails, boring holes through the blade and leaving the words behind. As this happened, the feeling of the grave slowly ceased to creep down the arm holding it and a ghostly edge formed around the blade, reflecting the ectoplasm Jonathan recognized from when Lynet had been a spirit attacking him instead of the bullheaded girl playing him as a puppet.

She repeated the process on the other blade and Jonathan felt a sense of satisfaction coming from the elf. With his body upgraded and arms crafted it was time to build a disguise. Not that she cared about him, Jonathan could see that in her thoughts, but Lynet knew she would not get close to her target if she had to fight against the might of Deatholme, nevermind the ghostlands or the scourge itself. Which was what she might be up against, trying to assassinate the leader of the scourge in Quel'thalas. No, she needed him because without a friendly necromancer this was a banshee's only way to power. Because without a disguise they might look too closely at the banshee with a body and find she hadn't been ordered to take it. Indeed wasn't even taking orders anymore. Undead outside the influence of the Lich King were as much an enemy the scourge hated as the living.

The first 'reagents' and 'materials' Lynet collected was a wandering pair of ghouls. Most of the flesh had rotted or desiccated off their bones so there wasn't much 'leather' to be had, but the elf moved him to attack them anyways. Using flight to build some height and momentum Lynet became solid once more and dropped on them. Blades of spirit and tigerseye stone hewed one dead elf at the waist, while relieving the other of it's skull at the neck. Not enough to drop either monster, the headless undead stumbled around, lashing out with it's arms like clubs while the torso of the other crawled around like a legless circus performer. Undeath lent them strength and thus mobility they had likely never possessed in life, but they were crippled by the blows nonetheless. Lynet stabbed the enchanted blade into the fire at the headless corpse core and it keeled over, flames of blue ethereal light fading as if the fuel were suddenly gone.

The other corpse screeched and tried to escape by clawing it's way up into the branches of the dead forest and swinging through the bous like an orangutan. It didn't get far before the banshee had flown them in front of it, and rematerialized with her sword through it's eye socket. With the runner dispatched the souls animating each corpse scarred and banished by the spectral blades, there would be no report. No memories to be shared about the spirits last moments in their former bodies. The Scourge could potentially reuse these bodies, had she not intended to do so herself. It lacked much of the elven grace fantasy literature had taught Jonathan to expect, but those souls were free.

They gathered the bodies and flew some more in case anyone **did** still come to investigate. After about an hour of flight they found a quiet place and repeated the earlier process. Several bones were ground to powder to form an enchanting diagram, words were spoken, reforging bone into armor plate.

This time, the skulls formed the basis for a set of shoulder pads, the braincase emptied of dust, the back folded in to provide a thicker plate and the jaw remodeled itself to become a bracelet that would hold the armor to Jonathan's armpit while the skullcap clung to the top of his shoulder. As deathly power and dust flowed and spiraled into the shoulder pads their color became darker, greyish, and pools of blue black light began to glow in each of the eye sockets. The carving to repurpose the necromantic power went faster this time, but was no less disconcerting. The skulls now gave out an aura of fear separate from the creepiness of them being human skulls with glowing eyes, and a ghostly blue-white shield which may or may not be useful. Jonathan wasn't sure.

Two sets of ribcages were next formed into a breastplate. This time though, there wasn't enough material to complete the item, let alone the required motifs, so the arm bones, pelvis and three of the four major sections of leg bone were added to the piece. The end result looked fairly badass in Jonathan's opinion, slightly raised ribs, hand bone pattern on the shoulder straps and a roaring beast skull emblem on the slightly detached stomach plate. Leather straps made from the skin of the dead held it together along with the skull pauldrons and it was relatively light and flexible for its size. The translucent blue barriers that formed on it after enchanting gave it an aura of power and menace that hadn't translated very well though his tabletop and video-games.

The final artifact made that night was a replacement magic bone. Jonathan marveled as Lynet first put the floating chips of his bone back together and then painstakingly copied the carvings he'd made onto the new femur. Jonathan knew it wouldn't work the same, the runes were only half the equation or less, but as dead power flowed into the new artifact, mineralizing the bone and making the lines glow with a burning blue-black power he couldn't wait to see just what it _did_ end up doing.

"I can't help thinking this would work better with an arm bone" Lynet muttered, holding the enchanted artifact up "particularly a mage's arm as it is adapted to channeling magic. But if the leg's actually a requirement what the hell; There's no shortage of materials."

 **Using a human or elf bone also makes it different.** Jonathan said, using what he'd learned to force his way into her thoughts. **The first magic bone was made from a goat.**

Lynet sheathed one of the Tigerseye axe-swords in a loop of bone he somehow hadn't noticed on either side of the armor. A second to become a wraith and they were off, the new magic bone still held in a white knuckle grip.

The second set of 'reagents' they found was used to test the armor. Lynet walked him up to a small caravan of elven prisoners being pulled by an abomination and guarded by a trio of skeletons and two more banshee. Flying up to them at ground level, Lynet dropped into corporeal form and fell in step with the cart. The banshee turned to them and offered looks of contempt, one muttering " _Death Knight,_ " in an ethereal rasp before turning away. Two of the skeletons, walking guard on either side of the caravan, one holding a pair of cleavers, the other a broadsword, completely ignored the banshee and her vessel, as did the patchwork abomination pulling the cart.

Only the skeleton sitting atop the carriage seat paid them any mind. It spoke in a series of rasps and clicks like bones tapping together or some with a flu mucus swollen throat. Somehow though, Jonathan understood what It was trying to say. "The Scourge sends us a Death Knight. I am honored. Is one of my prisoners special, or does Lich Lord Drathir suspect a rescue attempt?"

Lynet responded quickly. " _A rescue attempt. Be on your guard._ "

The prisoners in the cart looked at Jonathan through the bones with odd expressions, obviously confused as to what was going on. The warlock could admit he didn't blame them. A human speaking elf responds to gibberish by talking about a rescue. They probably weren't sure whether to feel hope or spit on him.

Lynet had them drop back to the rear of the small party and raised the bone over her head. " _Vaga Phasma, eximo doloris et requiem facilis!_ "

Jonathan couldn't help but laugh as the power burned in his chest and his magic bone, banishing the two banshee and exorcising the one that was possessing him. Her enunciation was poor, but that she'd remembered the exact wording of the spell he'd used to almost banish her nearly 3 days ago now despite the likely trauma of the experience was impressive.

As the blue flames of the banshee guards dissipated and the abomination writhed with spirits struggling to do the same, Jonathan turned to the woman who had been holding him hostage and snapped "Nego tibi corpus meum!"

Lynet shrieked in fury as a translucent barrier sprung up between them forcing her further away still and filling her with the understanding of his denial.

This all happened in a matter of seconds, but seconds were enough for the skeletons to react. Clacking and clattering like the pile of bones they were, the two guards rushed him while the driver began casting spells on the flesh golem now doing its best to tear itself and the cart apart.

"Mortem accipiam vos!" he yelled, leveling the bone on the closer of the two skeletons, sending a bolt of black flames at it. Instead of collapsing like a marionette as bound demons did when he dismissed them this way, the skeleton literally exploded, the burning blue energy animating it expanding like a small fireball, leaving a pile of smoking bones behind it. Lynet went after the other Skeleton, shredding it's soul with a scream and her ghostly talons.

When they were done the final skeleton and the abomination were standing together, facing them. The skeletal mage had quelled the rebelling souls animating the construct and unhooked it from the cart with remarkable speed. "I see now," it croaked, though only lynet could understand its words, "You didn't come to warn of a rescue attempt. You _were_ the attempt. Tell me, which of these lovely elves did you come here to save, hmm?"

"You talk too much." Jonathan quipped in english, before trying the spell that had blown up the last skeleton on the driver. The spell didn't connect, as the undead mage raised a glowing severed head before him which conjured a shield. As he did that, the patchwork monster roared.

"Little thing hurt Mumbles! SMAS..!" Lynet used the distraction of the Necromancer and Warlock's battle to dive into the abominations flesh. Such a creature was the last thing she wanted to inhabit on any long term basis, but the warlock now denied him his body and she would not condemn one of her own people to suffer her fate. Perhaps if she'd had the time to do it carefully as she had first taking the warlock, but not in the heat of battle. That would simply force them out of their body, a helpless specter, while leaving her trapped inside the wagon, useless.

There was a brief struggle for control, but the dead Enchantress quickly seized control. The confused spirits which animated the monster had largely forgotten how to act independently and their will was as fractured as their memories. As the five hazy eyes began to feed her information and she began to make sense of her new vision Lynet saw what had become of the battle in her absence. Jonathan, no battle mage he, was running around screaming while the skeletal necromancer fired bolts of void and death magic at him, the bone they had just crafted smoking in the boy's hands. As she watched, working out how to move the mishmash of limbs, a spell struck Jonathan full in the chest. Instead of killing him in some horribly creative manner however, it splashed against the blue white barrier that illuminated their armor.

Seeing this the boy barked in relief triumph and unsheathed her swords, preparing to charge his opponent. Lynet snorted and brought a fist down to smash the mage's body into splinters. As her fist snapped limbs and crushed major structures to shards, the mage's spirit gave her a sour look and vanished in a streak of blue white light.

Jonathan looked up at the amalgam of fetid flesh before him warily, wondering why it had saved hi...er stolen his kill.

" _Thír at i_ mess _cin've_ made." Jonathan only understood two words from the sentence, but the voice was familiar. It should be after hearing it constantly for three days. The meaning was clear too; she was mad at him, indignant that he'd stopped her from possessing him again. It didn't matter though, Lynet had made a mistake. Jonathan grinned, pulled the gun off his shoulder, and shot her in the face.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Dawn summers lay on her bed, scribbling in her journal. The last week had been...eventful. Glori attacked Tara, their house lost an entire wall, crazy Tara betrayed her to Glori, Knights of nee tried to kill her so glory wouldn't know where she was again, Glori captured her making their retreat worthless, she gets sacrificed for Glori's portal, but instead of everything going to hell Jonathan Levinson, of all people, turns glori's minions to magic eating elves and the world is saved.

Not that Jona the comic guy was still around to appreciate it…

She had it right four days ago when she told Spike she was a lightning rod for evil. According to the monks journal, before she was herself, the Key had drawn crazy's to it like the hellmouth had. Wherever the monks would move her, alien monsters and warlock summoners would gravitate towards her hiding place, opening dimensional breaches in the surrounding area. When the Monks had sent her to Buffy, they had worked a spell to rewrite time, space and identity, making her an innocent that nobody would harm...but still everyone's memories said that she was the damsel in distress. So many of buffy's adventures revolved around rescuing her from the flavor of the month baddie.

Something they apparently hadn't in the 'real' timeline.

It didn't get easier once her true timeline started either. Her presence had given her mother brain cancer. Glorificus had come to town looking for her and driven over a hundred people crazy and left dozens dead in her path to find her. And sprinkled through it all were the monsters. Buffy's destiny constantly gravitating towards and attacking her as they had done in her memories.

Dawn was broken from her morose thoughts by a tapping at her window. It was too early for Spike she thought as she rolled over. It was only just past four in the afternoon. Sitting up and looking out the offending portal where the tapping was coming again, Dawn almost shrieked at the unfamiliar face she was there.

It was an elf. Cute, petite, with silky black hair which reflected a blue tint in the sun and glowing blue eyes. The elf woman gave her a smile and a wave. Dawn returned the gesture hesitantly and the girls smile widened. She made a lifting gesture, then put her hands together as if praying and pouted. The effect was put off by the burning blue gaze and the fact that Dawn herself was well used to doing the same thing to her friends and family.

Xander in particular would cave to her whenever she used that expression.

Giggling slightly and shaking her head, Dawn went over to the window and unlatched it. Opening the window, but not giving permission to enter Dawn Crossed her arms under her breasts and stared at the elf.

"What do you want?" she asked, a little harsher that was probably necessary. They had been Glori's minions until two days ago after-all. There was no guarantee they weren't up to no good, this one's manners in not trashing her window notwithstanding.

The girl cocked her head to the side and smiled. "A few things." she replied voice bright but quiet. "May I come in? I mean, I don't need permission, but the last two decades have taught me that humans have this thing about boundaries."

Dawn stood aside, but again, didn't invite the woman in. "What if I said I didn't want you here?" She asked. "You worked for _her_ after all."

The elf girl chuckled. "People will do funny things when they're mad from mana withdrawal. I supposed it'd be like telling a starving or dehydrated human you'll give them food or water if they do something crazy for your amusement. It's crazy, and you know it, but that won't stop you from doing it on the hope they'll show you mercy. I wanted to apologize for that actually. We all would."

"Really?" Dawn asked, surprised by skeptical. "It's not because you want something?"

"My name's Belithia Firetree," she replied looking at her hand and then holding it out to shake, "and of course I want something; but that doesn't make my wish to apologize for past mistakes any less real."

Dawn stared at the crazy elf… at Belithia Firetree, for several minutes before shaking her hand through the window and then pulling slightly, her way of offering invitation. The raven tressed alien accepted it for what it was and slipped into the room, taking a seat on the window sill while Dawn returned to her bed. "So? What happens now? If nothing else, I've got to say this is the most polite kidnapping I've gone through."

"What makes you think I'm going to do that?"

Dawn scoffed. "What else would you be here for? In what's apparently my one year of actual existence, what has anyone actually wanted _me_ for? I'm the key, I let you cross worlds. You want to go home, isn't that it?"

Firetree shrugged. "We're not sure it's even possible. On one hand, the hellmouth leads to a thousand and more dimensions, most of them heavily polluted by the void and worse. There's also this magic law firm down in Los Angeles with regular portals to still more worlds. On the other, we have you. A gateway to all realities and all worlds within those realities, but only one incredibly wasteful way of using it. I mean, seriously, who would even design a ritual that uses stellar alignments? Galactic ley lines are so imprecise."

Dawn flopped back on the bed and didn't respond for almost a minute. "So, does this mean you want to use me, or that you don't?"

"It means we'd like to work with you." Firetree replied, a grin hidden from Dawn's perspective spreading across her face. "From watching you this last year I know you've always wanted to have adventures like your sister. Ones where, instead, you were the hero. Come to the mansion this summer. When you have time, when you can get away, when you're just bored. Help us find our way home and I will show you our world. Shining, shimmering, splendid Silvermoon the capital of Elven civilization! If we do this right, you can even move back and forth, coming and going as you please. We've got enchanted items there that can make you an equal to your sister and more! Most of them for sale at the Bazaar."

Dawn sat up, her face struggling with some mix of emotions before settling on intrigued. Belithia knew now that she had her. With a smile, she slipped out the window, crouching by the sill and looking back in. "Do you trust me?"

Dawn reply was hesitant. "...yes."

"Then you know where to find us." With that, she lept off the roof and disappeared.

Seconds later, Buffy barged into the room, and axe in hand and looking around wildly. "Dawn?"

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Seras Goldenglade shuddered as she and her party approached the bombed out remains of the old Sunnydale High School. Void magic was thick here and she could swear she felt the fetid stink of fel. Closing her eyes and offering a prayer to the light, a golden glow suffused her skin and forced the feeling back. When she opened them she was met by the concerned gaze of Gamon Manathistle.

"Should I be worried, priestess?" he asked. The mage was wearing his own shield, a plum colored sphere of light that could only just be seen in the afternoon light.

Seras shook her head and pressed forward. "It is nothing, battlemage. I am just out of practice. This is where we need to be. Keep your shield up and take your readings. I will try to consecrate the area." WIth that, the priestess walked up to the front doors and sat down on a planter with it's shrubs, now overgrown. Stilling her mind and focusing on serenity, Goldenglade reached out for the Light. Before Earth, before Draenor really, she could have consecrated an area to the Light simply by walking through it. But now, her faith was shaken. The withering Jonathan had healed her from had cut her off from the light and left her in madness for so long… but she would recover.

It was that thought, the sureness of her determination and belief that did it. The Light surged through her, flowing into the earth beneath her feet and the plants at her back. While they didn't grow, the sickly, dry, almost withered brush took on a healthy green vibrancy and the stones crackled with holy power. She opened her eyes, now shining with the golden power she channeled and smiled, serene. She walked forward, to the edge of her power had cleansed the earth. The area of consecrated earth expanded with what felt like glacial slowness, but was still visible progress. Seras smiled. She was not 100%, but she was ready.

"Do you have a location for us, battlemage?" she asked turning her golden gaze on her companion.

"That way." Manathistle grunted, pointing at the remnants of a small protruding wing of the building. "The local archivist built his library atop the nexus."

The priest stared at the library's shatters walls baffled. "They used siege spells on an archivist?"

The mage shook his head. "The archivist, Mr Giles, exchanged his books for dwarven siege _weapons_ and used them as a trap to kill a demon lord." Gamon replied with a chuckle. "You will likely find yourself more necessary here than than you'd believed or plotted."

With a nod of determination, The priestess pushed forward, small glowing pools of light growing in her footsteps.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

As Jonathan grabbed the gun and took aim, Lynet moved the arm of the Flesh golem almost instinctively, blocking the shot. Had it been a normal rifle round it wouldn't have been much use against the Abomination, perhaps taking out an eye, maybe even puncturing the useless brain; even less effective blocked as it was by the arm.

Unfortunately for her, the rifle held a particular dart. One of many filled with the Moh'Ra's Blood of Eternity. In an timeline erased by an evil god, the blood had restored the undead monster Angelus to the living man, Liam; excising the demon which had animated his corpse and trading his undeath for healthy life. He had Buffy Summers had spent a wonderful day together after which the Moh'ra came back and very nearly killed the both of them before a lucky attack on the Eye of a Thousand Fates banished it back to its own world.

The transformation of the Vampire Angel to the Human Liam, had take not quite two seconds. Two seconds which the former vampire described as a brief eternity of pain. But where Angel was a single healed body with two souls, the abomination Mumbles was a patchwork of dozens of bodies, animated by the souls of dozens of children. And Lynet.

As the luminescent blood spread through the abomination like roots or spider webs, the creature froze in place, every sewn together sinew taut with pain. The mountain of flesh screamed with a cacophony of voices and the banshee burst messily from the head, desperate to escape the pain. Pain worse than she had felt during her enslavement to the Lich King. Lynet, Jonathan and the captured elves watched in fascinated horror as the Flesh golem writhed and grew, flesh flowing like candle wax as it reformed into the bodies of nearly two dozen people of a variety of ages.

Humans, elves and dwarves of both genders, ranging from what looked to be five year olds to tall well built adults lay in the resulting pile of bodies, shivering and moaning.

It wasn't long till someone at the bottom complained of being unable to breathe and the naked crowd of newly living people began to shift and write as they clambered off each other and helped everyone to their feet. It was then, as the original watchers were moving past their consternation that the newly risen people began to examine their bodies… and found something wrong. None of the souls dragged out of the amalgam and reforged whole remembered the entirety of their past, the trauma and communal soul of the abomination broke most of what they were in the animation process; but many of them remembered something. And most of them were now the wrong race, age, gender or some combination thereof.

Jonathan grinned a madcap grin, not knowing what was wrong, but figuring everyone was excited about being alive again. Warren and Andrew would be sooo jealous, he was certain of it. For all of the scarry stuff, this world was even more like a videogame than sunnyvale's nightlife had been. And on the upside, he noted looking into the cage, Hot _Elves!_

Drawing one of the swords Lynet had crafted he took a swing at the rusty iron bolt on the cage door and marveled as the ethereal edge cut through it before the solid blade even had a chance to make contact. He reached out to open the door and abruptly found himself flat on his back, a burning sensation in his pants pocket and a charred skeleton of a hand. It didn't hurt yet, the nerves were scorched away by the attack and his brain hadn't quite yet registered what had happened.

For Jonathan's part, he felt like an idiot. It was a cage, made of _bones!_ Held together by poorly tied and heavily frayed ropes. _Of course_ it was going to be cursed. How else were the undead supposed to keep prisoners from breaking out of such a flimsy container and trying to run away? He ignored Lynet's mostly incomprehensible wailing reprimand, or perhaps insults, and used his shaking left hand to reach into his right pants pocket and retrieve the Eye. As the ruby was revealed Jonathan could see the light at its heart, burning angrily. Setting the gem on his cursed limb he channeled mana through it and back into his arm, sighing in relief as flesh bloomed and an unnoticed tension bled out of him.

Getting back to his feet, Jonathan glared at the cage and, weapons in hand, began chopping at the bones by the door. Focusing on the feeling of the spell he'd been experiencing repeatedly for the last several days, he slipped into wraith form, silencing Lynet and the elves, and floated up to where he could strike at where the bones connected to the top of the cage. As the bones fell out of the way, Jonathan returned to the ground and began hacking at the bottoms of the necromantic bars and using the flat of his blades to flip them out of the way. Once this was done, and the cage was completely missing it's back wall, Jonathan glowered at the elves inside. "Well? Aren't you coming out?"

The prisoners did so, tentatively at first, then in a rush when it became clear there was no magic stopping them now that the bars were gone. Several of the elves tried to thank him, but neither side could understand each other's words. Eventually one of the elves, a particularly haggard looking one, pushed his way through the group and stopped in front of Jonathan. Trembling, the elf began drawing in the air with his finger, leaving a faint purple light in his fingers wake. It looked like an eye with several symbols branching off from the eyelids. When he was done, the elf made an odd sign with his and and violet shadow of the image flew out to impact the heads of each of the survivors in the clearing.

As the mark touched his head, Jonathan's brain felt as if it were on fire. His thoughts were moving faster, his memories felt clearer and… _he could understand what everybody was saying._ Just like when the Banshee Lynet was possessing him his mind automatically translated their strange, oddly familiar, gobbledygook into perfectly understandable english.

"You have our thanks, halfling." The elf who had drawn the symbol told him, his words now perfectly clear. "If you can protect me and mine for an hour or so, I think I can gather the strength to craft a portal to the safe zone in Silvermoon. Our people are looking for allies, we will not forget the aid of one of Gnomeregan's finest."

Jonathan shrugged, not asking where Gnomeregan was for fear of showing himself to be ignorant. Still, It was nice to be recognized as the hero instead of the loser nerd people normally saw him as. "An hour?" He asked. He sheathed Lynet's swords and pulled out the gem again. "An hour's a little long out here..."

The elf shook his head. "I'm dehydrated, half starved and the Ley lines here are hopelessly polluted. The effort will probably end in my death as we are, speeding the process up is not an option. Not all of us are capable of sustaining ourselves of necromantic power."

"I'm not a necromancer." Jonathan replied sharply.

Several of the elves game him strange looks and asked in a jumble of voices "But what about your armor? The motifs alone..." "You had a banshee in you and you're not dead!" "Aren't those shields ectoplasm?" "How'd you become a wraith then?" "Your armor's made of bone!" "You spoke to that Lich!" "How'd you turn that abomination into people?" "You fired death bolts, and shadowflame!" "Your swords cut through the bars, they were enchanted to attack all other forms of magic!"

Jonathan wilted under the barrage of questions. They didn't seem angry, mostly confused; but there were a lot of them, they had good points in retrospect and they didn't seem entirely friendly either.

"One at a time!" He shouted. As the clamor of questions died down, he held out his hands and explained. "I came to Quel'thalas as part of a portal accident. Upon landing I met the banshee. Her name is Lynet Windrider. I freed her from the Lich King and tried to send her to a proper death, but I wasn't strong enough. She possessed me, intending to seek revenge on the one who made her a ghost but didn't kick me out of my own body as a measure of thanks. She used to be an enchanter, so while we were together she started making my armor and weapons as a disguise so we could break into Deatholme. We ran across you while collecting materials. I was able to become a ghost and fly because i'm a quick learner and the banshee used that spell _**a**_ _ **lot**_."

Most everybody calmed down on that, though he still hadn't answered several of the questions. The elf who offered to build the portal however, had one more. "How did you regrow your arm after being cursed by the cage? That power certainly was not the light."

Jonathan opened his hand to reveal the ruby. "The eye of a thousand. It allows you to trade magic for health."

"Any magic?" the elf asked.

Jonathan paused and then nodded. He'd been drawing magic from the land just as he always had, even though the magic here was mostly death magic because of the necromancer Lynet was after.

"That's quite Ironic, given what's happened to the land. And very valuable..." He murmured, his and many of the other elves eyes gleaming.

Lynet descended between Jonathan and other, living, elf, practically hissing. "Yes, it is. And we're going to need it if we're to complete our mission and invade Deatholme."

The haggard elf glowered at her but nodded quickly and continued in a cheery tone of voice. "Of course, of course. I wouldn't dream of depriving you of it. However, if my friends and I could have a taste, perhaps we could get out of here and out of your way that much sooner?"

Lynet relented, slowly backing out of the way, the crowd parting easily for her. With that, Jonathan set about healing the elves from the wagon and making sure there was nothing wrong with the people who had been created from the abomination. The new people, weren't so much new as they were the souls of children, some even stuck two or three at a time, into the various pieces of meat than had been used to construct their former housing and then grown into full bodies based on those who had been originally cut up… It was, fairly confusing, but for the most part everyone was just happy to be free from the agony of undeath.

The last person to step up to Jonathan for healing was, ironically the first one who'd made an issue about being able to use said healing artifact. "Pardon me for earlier, my name is Hairon Bloodweaver, former magister of Quel'danas. My friends and I were captured on a routine sweep of the kingdom looking for any survivors among the wreckage. Luckily, we had already sent off our last survivor when the undead descended upon us. We fought valiantly, but my farstriders and I were taken before we could construct our own portal and retreat. The Lich Masophet the Black wanted to interrogate us personally and at length. I'm sure you can understand the desperate nature of our situation?"

Jonathan nodded slowly, wondering if perhaps the elf were trying to invoke pity as a means of getting him to give up the stone. It wasn't an uncommon tactic used by villains in the games he was fond of playing. ...or in highschool by crying girls. He shook off the thoughts and silently began healing Hairon. The elf seemed annoyed, but stood their patiently as Jonathan moved the gem around, a crimson aura burning around his fist and sinking into the other man's flesh.

Despite his efforts however, the elf didn't seem to be getting any better. There was a black aura around his skin and a growing feeling of power emanating from him.

"You're trading health for magic?" Jonathan guessed, worried.

The elf nodded, coughing wetly. "Well spotted, gnome. Life tap, or so the spell is called. It was introduced to us by the trolls. Vile creatures, and with their natural regeneration not particularly harmful to them. But with your healing backing me up, it works." The black aura vanished and the Magister sighed. "Ah, that's much better." Jonathan continued healing the other man dutifully and watched closely as he began drawing in the air once more, his finger leaving trails of magic behind it.

Once the pair of them were nearly done, Jonathan with healing Magister Bloodweaver and Bloodweaver with drawing a now spinning circle of runes, the elf slashed his hand through the circle in a slicing motion and with a ripping sound, the air literally tore open, to reveal a courtyard in the widening gap. After a few seconds, the gap had widened into a large doorway through which Jonathan could see more of the courtyard, including a city skyline and a large group of elves in red plate armor bearing glowing weapons.

"Alright, everyone through!" The mage shouted, "March in a calm and orderly fashion and wait for me to follow you. My farstriders, you know the drill, help our...guests. See that they aren't arrested or killed on sight, that would be unfortunate."

Jonathan snorted. Unfortunate he says… now there's an understatement.

"SO," Bloodweaver said, stepping through the portal and looking back as the last of the elves and former abominations made it through. "How about it, hero? Silvermoon awaits!" Jonathan stepped forward with a grin, intending to take the mage up on his invitation, but a scream from behind him and a blur of ghostly blue-white magic destroyed the magic which bridged the space between the clearing and the city.

" _And where exactly do you think you're going?_ " The banshee snarled.

"Damnit," Jonathan whined "that's cheating! We saved some of your people, and they invited me! Why couldn't you have just left well enough alone?"

" _Because our task is not yet finished!_ " Lynet hissed. " _Because you wear armor I crafted for you. Not only does it belong to me, forged for the benefit of my vengeance, my people would have killed you on sight had you worn it into the city. Invitation or not. That my armor would have been then destroyed is the least of our worries. A potion that can revive the dead? A stone that can use undeath polluted magic and still heal? Do you imagine you would have been allowed to keep either? That you would even be allowed to return home before Quel'thalas was fully restored? Or at all? Can't have potential allies knowing that you robbed and enslaved one of their own._ "

Jonathan stared at the ghost for several minutes… and then broke out laughing.

" _What's so funny?_ " The banshee growled, crossing her arms. She couldn't possess him until his spell ran out, but she was itching to slash her claws through his soul.

"Well, it's just… hehe, you get both of them from a single monster summon. The Elixir is its blood and the eye, well… ha-ha-ha… and even then, they'd have to stop it first!"

" _What do you mean? How powerful is this monster?_ " the banshee asked, alarmed.

Jonathan grinned. "Remember how I told you they came from the Moh'Ra? The Moh'Ra are an order, or perhaps a race, of assassins. They're immortal, unkillable and every wound they take only makes them stronger and meaner. They're also immune to poison, disease, age, fatigue and resistant to many forms of magic requiring crazy amounts of power to do what you normally would to anything else. The only way to stop them," He held up the ruby gem "Is to steal their eye. If some idiot wants to force me to make more of either, they're going to have to deal with a highly trained nigh unstoppable killer and no information about its weaknesses. "

The elven ghost floated there in silent contemplation. " _How easy are they to summon and control?_ "

Jonathan shrugged. "That really depends. First, do you know where I can find some Cherries? And second, other than the ocean, do you have any idea where I can get some salt?"

" _The cherries will be a problem. All of the orchards are dead, burnt or corrupted by the scourge along with the rest of the farms in this kingdom and the next. As for salt, the undead often carry it, something about keeping sinew tough and staving off rot. As if being a skeleton without flesh would hinder them any._ "

"Right. The orchards being dead won't matter much so long as we can get the cherry seeds. I still have most of the bag of soybeans, and we can get salt." At the banshee's pointed look he explained. "Moh'Ra eat salt. In large quantities. It's what allows them to regenerate and grow in size and strength indefinitely. Chopping them apart won't kill them and if nothing else the body parts can just drag themselves to the shore sea and get right back to work. The cherry pits and soybeans are part of the summoning. So were those monkey bones you crushed earlier today, though I suppose I could make more with Human knuckles."

Lynet swore. So that's why the gnome was carrying the bones. Also, the nearest orchards were leagues away. A trip of a day or so flying, but if she couldn't possess the boy again it would be weeks out of their way. Unless the boy had somehow learned to craft portals with a single lesson just… like… _he had learned to fly by watching her..!_

 _Alright, this could work_ , she told herself. While she didn't trust the boy's skills at magic or arms, her plan to make him appear as if a death knight to waylay attention from her efforts to close with and destroy Dar'Khan Drathir weren't totally in shambles. The boy would simply become the distraction and meat shield while she tore the traitor's soul from his body and shredded it beyond even the Lich King's ability to restore.

While Lynet hovered in place, plotting, Jonathan went to examine the bodies for loot.

The banshee they had banished had both left behind a pair of silver bracers that hummed with magic. Using Lynet's swords, he carefully picked them up with the hooked part of the blade and carried them over to where the first skeleton had died. The cleavers it had wielded bore no magic, but were greasy and smelled foul. Possibly poisoned, or maybe just dirty to the point they had bacteria festering on the surface. He left them there and went to examine the one carrying the broadsword. It too held no appreciable magic, but was also chipped and cracked up and down the blade's edge, as if it had seen many battles and no care. Shrugging, he picked it up by the pommel and dragged it along. The three cleavers and chain the Flesh golem had been holding were enchanted however. Both weapons held a silvery sheen to them that had nothing to do with blood caked metal and the hook held a dark miasma to it. The chain twitched as he approached as if it wanted to jump up and grab him, but couldn't muster up the will to overcome gravity.

Nudging the items around with his toe so that they were laid out properly, Jonathan also took off the shoulder pieces, chest armor and shook the bracers off onto the ground, laying them out as well.

The Kopesh he kept.

Turning around, he saw Lynet watching him intently, and thoughtful expression on her translucent face. Ignoring it, he turned away and went to examine the third skeleton, the necromancer. Most of the bones that created the skeleton were broken, and the oddly sparse plate armor it was wearing warped out of shape, but the skull was still strangely intact. Examining it to make sure there were no hidden curses or other nasty traps, Jonathan picked it up and put it under his arm. The various plate pieces the skeletal sorcerer has worn were, on closer inspection, made of silver and all but glowed with potential magic. Not that Jonathan knew what it did.

He carefully picked each of them up with the hook of the swords and moved them to the rest of the gathered loot so they could be examined later.

The last two items the skeletal mage had possessed were the severed head which created shields and a silvery staff topped with a massive amethyst stone. The base of the obelisk was easily the size of a tennis ball. It had to be more than 2000 carats and the purple stone was entirely clear. The staff crackled with suppressed energy as Jonathan carefully maneuvered it over to the pile.

Finally, there was the severed head. The head was rotted, stank and covered in flies. Whatever color it had been before it was now a mottled green/grey with occasional patches of orange mold. The eyes, which had the eyelids removed, glowed with a dark light and were clouded silver of cataracts. At a guess Jonathan might have said the head was originally female by the shape of the face and long hair, but the elves he had just met in the cage… well, the men looked pretty effeminate. There was no real way to tell without using the stone to restore it and Jonathan wasn't sure that wouldn't destroy the magickal properties which had created the shield earlier.

" _Well, aren't you going to restore it?_ " Jonathan started at Lynet's voice over his shoulder.

Jonathan shook his head. "No, the head was able to project a shield that protected the necromancer from my attacks. I'd like to be able to use that later and it might break the magic I restored the head with the stone." he turned to her, gaze alight with curiosity. "Unless you know something I don't?"

The banshee floated closer, sticking her ethereal fingers into the pulpy surface. "No, I don't think so. But come, I'll need you to draw the diagrams now that you've denied me your body. Also," she added in a carefully offhand tone of voice "why mention the stone? Couldn't you use the blood of the Moh'Ra?"

"Nope" the warlock replied simply. "The blood cannot repair or resurrect the simply dead. There needs to be an animating spirit and blood for a transmission vector. It can remove damage, disease, curses, undeath, poison and free the rooted spirit from a possessing one, but outright resurrection? Not so much. All of the most powerful magics have some sort of critical weakness like that."

Lynet stared at him. That was nothing like the magic she had learned over the course of three hundred years of life. Magic didn't have arbitrary weaknesses, nor did it have absolute powers like that. The power and weakness of magic was in how you structured it, from the base elements to the complex framework which gave it shape.

" _Take out your wand and trace it in the path I show you._ " The banshee instructed. As Jonathan follower her instructions, the undead enchantress fell quickly into explaining each symbol and what they meant. How the shape of magic had been learned by observing the way magic flowed through the planets ley lines and wild elemental spirits. Why lines led power from one place to another and how streams of magic moving through other magical fields changed the nature of both. She explained how to sunder enchantments and recover the congealed residue to act as a base for similar, and more powerful, enchantments.

"What I can teach you right now is limited by the pollution in the ley lines, but many of the more basic enchantments work well across elemental boundaries."

Disenchanting the carriage in particular produced a large amount of usable material; both bone and spirit essence. A small amount of it was sacrificed to show Jonathan how to transfer the shield enchantment into another artifact. The human chose one of the banshee's cuffs, because he believed the two magics would form a sympathetic compatibility with the Banshee's anti-magic cry. Lynet was doubtful at first, but once completed the enchantment seemed stable.

The next thing they did was Jonathan's own project. In thanks for teaching him about Azeroth's method of enhancing, the boy wanted to show her one of his own. Taking Masophet's pristine skull, he set it in the middle of the clearing and drew a circle around it. Two lines branched out from the circle in a short spiral he explained was to signify both mixing and condensation. Around that circle was drawn a square, then a triangle, and finally another circle. Each of the lines were then rimmed by jagged runes of the 'eldar futhark' which jonathan translated as he drew them. Once the entire thing was done, he bled a little on the skull and then stood back.

"Brace yourself." He told his companion with a grin.

Immediately the blood started smoking and a shadowy blue light began to bleed out along the lines in the dirt, illuminating them with the same silvery light that shone from the banshee's body. Then the wind picked up and the spirit felt a tugging on the core of her being.

" _What are you doing?_ " she asked, worried.

"Enchanting!" the boy replied with a grin. "This is the quick and dirty method. When a vessel is designated the diagram, denoting spiritual transformation and condensation, drains the area of magic and funnels it into the vessel until it can't hold anymore." he explained as the wind began to cause the branches of the surrounding forest to creak and sway. "The street name for it is 'The Doom Box' because of its tendency to explode if not handled carefully. I thought we could use that to our advantage. You said you wanted someone dead, their soul destroyed? I've set the diagram to syphon the same magic that lingered on the skull. When it's done we should have enough death magic to kill a small city. Or at point blank, a small army of immortal dead. They'll return to the underworld in pieces, you can bet on it!"

" _A mana bomb!?_ " she shrieked, now having to fly to avoid being drawn in. " _Are you insane? How do you think you're going to handle something that unstable? How do you intend to deliver it? What happens if it sucks me in!?_ "

Jonathan laughed, now bowing against the wind himself. "That's kindof the point!" he shouted back over the growing noise of the wind. "You wanted a body? That skull held a powerful spirit not so long ago doubtless you could reanimate the skeleton too. You wanted the power you could get from possessing me? You'll find plenty of power in there! You wanted revenge? That thing can destroy any soul within a hundred meter blast radius! I used one of these babies as the fuel for a spell to rewrite reality itself two years ago! And it worked! Dumbest decision I ever made, but it worked!"

" _Well you've just one upped yourself!_ " the banshee shrieked, before vanishing like an arrow out of a bow as the power draining the death magic from the land overcame her ability to escape and she was sucked in.

As the banshee disappeared into the skull, the suction abruptly cut off and the aura of magic disappeared. Jonathan had expected this, but he hadn't counted on what happened next. Instead of the eyes lighting up and the skull taking flight, an angry banshee trapped inside of it, the bone plates began to glow with a brilliant white aura outlining the blackening bone like a reverse xray. Within moments the entire skull was a queerly radiant black with the ridges given definition by stark white light.

Only now, after this strange transformation did it lift off the ground as he had expected, levitating under its own power. But that wasn't the limit of its transformation. More black material began to pour out of the skull, forming a spine, then a rib cage, pelvis, collarbone, arms and legs. All of them forged of a radiant darkness outlined by blistering white. Next formed organs, a vascular network filled with motes of white power, the muscles, padding and finally a last layer that must have been skin. A face formed around the skull, that of a young girl of alien beauty and long pointed horn like ears. The white aura, enormous now, receded over most of her body to form a flaming whiteness atop her scalp obscuring the darkness of it from view.

The undeniably female figure turned to Jonathan and opened it's eyes, cold and brilliant as stars. Jonathan felt his dick stiffen in his pants and he groaned. "I am so going to hell."

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Tune in next time, for the Death of Dar'Khan.


	4. Downfall

AN: To those of you who actually watch my story with interest, I apologize for the delay in posting this latest chapter, it should have been out two weeks ago… But I got lost reading Seed by TheOtherAnt. A DAMN good Worm story. Bit of an odd AU, but I think his changes improve things much more than they confused. The only thing I can really say bad about the story is that if you're not already a big fan of worm you'll more than likely be confused while reading through a lot of it. But then, that's an issue with many fanfictions, which is why were fannon writers rather than cannon writers of our own paid originals.

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As the menacing thing that used to be Lynet stalked towards him Jonathan squeaked, cleared his throat and said in a rush, "In my defense you ended up a lot better than either of us expected!"

The being narrowed her eyes at him and stopped just far enough away that Jonathan would be able to look at her face rather than having a faceful of her breasts. " _ **I should destroy you where you stand, Levinson.**_ " The figure replied, it's voice causing Jonathan to feel drained and tired while the Eye ruby flared with heat in response to counter his drop in vitality. " _ **You bring it on yourself, you really truly do. Never before had I given credence to your races reputed ability to skirt it's own destruction.**_ "

Jonathan gulped. "Come on, don't be like that. If the spell had worked right you'd have been a flying self guided bomb! Short of an underground room with no doors or windows, not much could have stopped you from reaching your enemy Drathir and sending him and all his friends to hell. This actually works out better! Doesn't it? Come to that… what exactly are you?"

The figure, now almost certainly Lynet, tried to punch the much smaller man by was stymied by a shield of blue white energy emanating from the glowing bracers she'd helped him create. Growling in frustration she turned and walked away once more, stalking towards where they had left the remaining enchanted materials.

" _ **Tell me,**_ **Jonathan;** _ **how precisely it is you forgot one of the most basic lessons of magic?**_ "

"Because it was basic?" He asked flippantly.

She gave a disgusted snort and continued. " _ **The ninth rule of magic expressly states that as power density increases the fabric of reality will either weaken or force order and form upon the energy; either of which can result in disaster if not managed properly. The most common side effects of such ordering are mana crystals and arcane intelligences, such as elemental beings. What do you think would have happened had I not been drawn into your idiotic device to form the core of the new elemental? Do you have any training in binding such creatures? Any idea what your newborn spirit might have done with that power?**_ "

"Oh! I know this one! Not elementals perhaps, though I've summoned sparks of living flame as practice; but binding ghosts, demons and extra-dimensional monsters is sort of a specialty of mine!"

Lynet seemed to teleport to where she was in his face, her nose an inch from his. " _ **And how hat that been working out for you recently?**_ " she asked snidely.

Jonathan frowned. "Hey! Usually I have time to prepare the binding before hand. Typically I write it into the summoning itself. You just kind of jumped out at me! Repeatedly!"

The Death elemental stood up and covered its face in its hands. " _ **Fine…**_ " Lynet replied with a groan. " _ **You never did try to present yourself as a battle-mage. Light this is a mess.**_ " She looked up, as if seeing something Jonathan couldn't, which was likely. " _ **Become a wraith and try not to fall behind. If we stay here a few minutes longer we'll be under siege by half of the undead forces in the county. Our previous battle with Masophet has drawn attention and your enchantment has almost certainly peaked their curiosity.**_ "

Jonathan blanched and nodded. He ran over to the pile of items and grabbed the necromancers amethyst staff, silver gauntlets and silver boots. A quick check of his backpack and gun and the boy faded into shadow, necromantic energy causing him to become insubstantial as his body shifted halfway into the shadowlands, the dark mirror of the plane of life; the emerald dream.

Lynet herself also stopped at the pile of enchanted items, though while the Abominations hook and chain and the remains of Jonathans second bone turned to ash in her hands, she seemed satisfied with the trip, diving into the earth with Jonathan trailing close behind.

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Dawn watched Buffy jog off down the twilight street, axe in hand before slipping out herself. With Mom gone and Buffy possessing superpowers the car made getting away easy. Driving slowly, Dawn thought about what she was doing. Things were falling apart. They had been since she was made human really. Mom's hospital bills had come in earlier that day and they were staggering. Worse, Xander had surveyed the damage to the house and his estimate on the cost to repair it wasn't pretty.

That was what Buffy and Mr. Giles had been fighting about earlier. The englishman wanted to pay for it using the proceeds from the Moh'Ra blood. Anya was against it, but Mr Giles had argued that had Jonathan still been here his cut would have been significant and it would likely take much less than that to pay for everything. Buffy, like her, felt sick over what had happened, Jona losing his life for her, but Buffy wanted to take responsibility for things on her own.

She was planning on dropping out of college and getting a Job. Giles thought that would be both irresponsible and ineffective. Buffy hadn't completed her schooling so the only jobs she was likely to get were low paid workers or Law Enforcement as a beat cop. While being an officer of the law, particularly on the night shift would be a good match for a Sayer, Giles agreed, being a detective with a degree would be much more effective as she would largely be able to determine her own case schedule and would be paid much better for it. Something she couldn't do very easily if she dropped out. Besides which, he planned to pay for things making the gesture moot.

Regardless the outcome, Dawn needed to get out. She needed air. She needed to be doing something. Sitting in her room and thinking about how she'd killed both the most important person in her life and an innocent who'd risked himself to save her was suffocating.

But the elves… With the elves there was hope. While she didn't trust Glori's former minions, her visitors arguments had made sense. They were different people from whom they'd been when she knew them. And they believed that 'Jona the comic shop guy' might not be dead.

She had to know why. Why did they think that? What made them so certain?

Nevermind that they had offered her the chance to explore the universe and wear equipment that would allow her to compete with her sister.

Soon enough she was at the gate to the mansion Glori had taken for herself. The gate was open and looking around she saw nobody, so she continued driving forward until she reached the roundabout. Getting out of the car she walked up to the door and pressed the buzzer. She was greeted by brunette elf girl who studied her face for a moment before pushing her out of the way.

"Everyone stand down, we're expecting this human."

Dawn turned around quickly to see movement in several places and glints of light on what might have been arrows if she didn't miss her guess. She shivered slightly, wondering how close she'd been to getting shot and allowed herself to be ushered inside.

"It is an honor to have you among us again, Ms Summers. Please, right this way. Those on guard have informed the rest of your arrival. Belithia is quite smug; we did not expect you so soon." As she led Dawn inside, the mystical human took not of various things about her guide. She dressed like Faith, in soft form fitting leather pants and a Jacket. Across her shoulders hung a sports bow like the kind the wild Slayer had stolen back during the debacle with the Mayor. She also walked with the same catlike prowl. Mentally Dawn labeled her Faith 2.0 and suppressed both a giggle and a shudder.

It didn't take long for them to get up to the room she recognized as being Glori's old one. It was a decadent sitting room full of art, but it was also large enough to hold several dozen people. She moved into the room and jumped with an "eep" as something bounded off her right arm and fell to the floor with a solid _Thud_. It was a gem. Large as a chicken egg and and sapphire blue. Looking to her other side, even as people moved to make exclamations and greet her, she was a pile of similar gemstones just...laying there, in a disorganized pile as if they were being thrown away.

"Dawn!" She heard a familiar voice call, drawing her attention. "I'm glad you decided to join us. We're not doing anything particularly important right now, but how about you join us for dinner while I introduce you to the others?"

Dawn nodded absently. "What is he doing with those gems?" She gestured to the elf sitting in a plush chair, glowing light peeking out from between his cupped hands. "They're enormous!"

Another elf, this one with coppery red hair and dark brown eyes replied. "Oh, don't mind Stormbreaker. She's trying to figure out a way around the void taint that permeates the town." Seeing her blank expression, he continued. "She's condensing mana into solid form and trying to filter out the dark stuff. See those other gems floating on the table? Purified Light, Arcane, Void and Death elements. She thinks that if he can get the rest of the basic elements she can combine them into an artifact that could solve alot of problems, but as you see,.." he gestured to the pile of rocks "she's having troubles."

"Actually she's just being obstinate." Cut in another elf who had just walked up to them. "Hello, milady Key. Allow me to… reintroduce myself. I am Lt. Meloren Starblade, ranking officer of the Farstriders. I would like to formally apologize for the circumstances of our… previous relationship. I understand it was less than ideal. The elves of Quel'Thalas have long been friends and allies of the humans and even across worlds I wouldn't want people to get the wrong impression."

Dawn snorted. "I don't think you need to worry about that. When you get a chance, go to the library and ask for the Lord of the Rings series." She got a mischievous smirk on her face. "Or don't, and I can bring over the movies." She looked back at the other elf again, Stormbreaker. "What do you mean though, 'she's being obstinate'?"

"Ah," The leader replied, accepting a plate of food from another elf "one of our pet projects. As it seems we may be here for some time, it has been decided that we should take measures to look after our health. Elves depend on magic the same way all living beings do food or water. But the magic here is fouled by the darkness of the void. Though not nearly as good as having essences apparently; Deliath believes that if she can create some pure enough mana gems she can forge them into a Nexus Crystal, or better, a Prismatic Core. This will let us transmute the nature of the magic coming out of the rift downtown and make it safe for consumption. We're having a bit of trouble as both of our sorcerers are battlemages instead of enchanters, but she is determined to reverse ritualize the principles involved from battle magic to enchantment. We'd be happy with just altering the death and void magics to arcane, but she wants as many types of crystals as possible before preparations begin."

Dawn bit her lip and absently accepted a plate of her own from another elf. "I suppose I could put you in touch with Willow and Tara. Willows a general practitioner, but she's really clever and powerful. I've seen her make her own spells and enchant her computer dozens of times. Not sure if she'll trust you though… It's generally a bad idea to mess with the hellmouth. Buffy spends most of her time trying to stop people from playing with it..."

Belithia put her hand on Dawn's shoulder. "It'll be fine. We'll work with them to keep an eye on things. And If you can't convince them, I'm sure you know other mages in town, or your friends can put you in touch with them. Let them know we pay in gold." The black haired elf's face split in a smirk as Dawn's eyes widened comically.

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Flying through solid earth was probably one of the strangest things Jonathan had ever experienced. While in ghost form Jonathan's ability to see things was somewhat murky to begin with, an effect Lynet had compensated for when she held the reigns by a familiarity with the alternate forms new sense. Death-sense she had called it. Silvery light defined things that had refused death, spirits and the undead being chief among these, while bright colored forms denoted that which still lived. All else was a formless void with hints, only hints, of something more just out of reach. It had worried Jonathan at first that they, and now he, might try through accident to become corporeal within another object and become fused to it, no longer being distracted by the uncomfortable feeling of possession he could now determine subtle differences between any varied material he phased though, including the relative freedom of air.

He wondered briefly what flying through water or something living might feel like, but passed off the thought in favor of avoiding the veritable nation of the scourge army marching above his head and continued following Lynet. Without light for his eyes to see she would end up being his only point of reference soon.

Ahead of him the now powerful spirit elf spirit abruptly looked up, and Jonathan altered his course to see what had caught her interest. It seemed that he had spoken too soon. While going underground had allowed them to escape most of the undead, including various flyers as his partner had predicted, Banshee, wraiths and other bodiless spirits were not so limited. In Jonathan's death-sense he could see ghosts diving on them as directed by living necromancers.

Fuck. What to do? While possessing him the elf had never performed any magic incorporeal. HE had never performed any magic before without some sort of tool, or being able to speak aloud. But while he floundered, wondering if the staff he'd taken with him into intangibility might work, Lynet was not so idle. Raising one arm, the former banshee unleashed a stream of deathly energy that lashed out and formed a hand, grabbing one of the other spirits before it could close on it's own and reeling it in. As the wraith reached her hands, Lynet seemed to sing a chord Jonathan could hear despite the stone in the way, like a choir warming up before a song. The broken spirit sagged and seemed somehow relieved before exploding into a cloud of wispy smoke which Lynet drew into herself.

The banshee who had dove after them didn't take kindly to this and howled in fury, lashing out at the pair of them with long clawed fingers. Jonathan brought up the staff in a cringing block while Lynet countered their scream with a song of her own. While his companion seemed to dance through the onslaught of their aggressors in his 3D viewpoint, Jonathan was stuck first marveling at the resistance his staff had to the banshee's claws, and then attacking back. Both the banshee and the warlock flailed wildly at each other, unskilled in their attacks, but Jonathan's staff gave him first a reach advantage, and then a range advantage as he figured out the rudiments of how to channel magic while straddling two realities.

While Jonathan battled his one opponent, Lynet held the attention of the rest. Weaving in and out of her fellow banshee's flight-path's she faced a fair amount of trouble as she tried to keep it so she was only facing one enemy at a time, while still holding the attention of the haunt. Lynet would have fled. The number of spirits diving on them was dangerous, even with the power Jonathan had given her. But the success of her first attack had been the turning point in her decision making. She had disenchanted and consumed the magic of two magical artifacts before they left. The Abominations hook had given her the death grip spell, but the important one had been Jonathan's bone. The lingering magic from exorcism spell had combined with her wail to effectively shatter the connection between undead and their controllers… But only at close range. Or perhaps that was an effect of using it underground, she didn't know.

To the necromancers above, and the Lich King far away, the specters simply fell. One by one, Lynet would take them down, proving herself to be the more powerful spirit. But underground where it was so difficult for them to see a different story unfolded. With each melee a hopeful song would strip a banshee, wraith or ghost from the Scourge's ranks, leaving them stunned, enraged or vindictively helpful. As the haunt of tortured spirits shifted allegiances spirits began falling to the claws, wails, death bolts and vampirism of the gathered spooks on both sides of the divide. By the time Jonathan had finished his first banshee, there was already a war going on beneath the dead earth. Lynet's friends were not the only ones scoring hits though. Even discounting the splash damage of multiple banshee cries going off in the same area sometimes disbursing spirits to the afterlife, the scourges ghosts had plenty enough intelligence to notice and respond to being attacked. Worst among these were the occasional spirit which served the scourge willingly, therefore being granted greater autonomy and vestigial intelligence.

As Lynet engaged one of these stronger spirits, that of Jurian the Deceiver, Jonathan watched the battle from a distance and took potshots with Masophet's staff. He marveled briefly at his friend's ability to direct a campaign of attrition from the front line. What equivocate to mid-air acrobatics and a knife duel should be plenty enough to keep one's mind busy, but the addition of conversion tactics he'd been fond of in video games it was quite something. Even more impressive to see in person rather than on screen.

Despite the elf women's successes and uncanny ability to know just where to convert a spirit to stem the advance of the others, it was clear that his captor was losing. Maybe she saw it, maybe she didn't, but there were just too many ghosts pouring in now. Her side was becoming surrounded, and soon the curve of her three dimensional battle line would be overwhelmed. They would be attacked from all sides and even Lynet might fall. Jonathan could see this because of his vantage point, removed from the action, just as it was when he was playing RTS games. And perhaps...that was even the key? He had noted since even before the battle was really joined that the undead seemed to be linked to the bright living points in the host above. Threads of power which the Elemental Windrider cut in order to recruit her own forces. Cutting them one by one wasn't working anymore though. It was just too slow, even as the former banshee danced her way through their ranks turning allies and eviscerating souls left and right.

The boy watched in worry as his erstwhile ally reeled in another soul, one nearly as powerful as she, and the battle lines collapsed on themselves as many of her fellow ghosts fell on it, shredding the creatures ethereal form before it could recover. His fear realized, the enemy stream of ghosts now surrounded his guide, captor, teacher...friend? Jonathan shook his head. He owed her nothing, with this situation she'd led herself into he could leave. She would maintain everybody's attention until he was well away from the fighting. He'd seen in her memories that silvermoon was north, and he _had_ been invited…

So why wasn't he leaving? Jonathan looked up at the gathering nation of armed undead over top of them again. The necromancers stood out so clearly…

His expression resolved into one of determination. He'd give Lynet a chance. Some breathing room, and then he'd go hide. He'd be no real use in this sort of battle anyways. Well, he could be, but he had no supplies for any of the applicable rituals and the odd mix of magical energies here was throwing off his spells anyways. But he could do this at least. Raising the lovely weapon left to him by the skeletal necromancer, Jonathan sited down the rod resting it on his shoulder like a bazooka. Once he had a target selected he began drawing in as much ghostly power as he could in a short amount of time and, after nearly half a minute, released it in a single attack.

" _Sic Semper Tyrannis."_

The ethereal magic of death, charged with its casters intent to slay that which was courted death like a sick pervert, lanced out like a laser beam; passing harmlessly through nearly a hundred feet of desecrated rock and dead fallow earth to tear through Vectus Kirtonos, Necromancer captain of Quel'Thalas. The spike of entropy tore through a shield and enchanted breastplate, obliterating his liver, heart and most of both lungs. As per contract with the Lich King, Kirtonos soul was immediately whisked away to a prepared phylactery in the Scholomance fortress to be reborn for the first time as a Lich, but his control over the ghosts assaulting Lynet shattered.

Sadly it wasn't enough to free the souls under his command, their tethers transferring in a matter of seconds to other nearby necromancers, but with the change of command and unexpected increase of pressure on the minds of those other commanders, Jonathan had purchased Lynet nearly a full minute freedom to act. And act she did.

While Jonathan hung there, rocked and exhausted by the power he had channeled, and the undead struggled to regain order, the banshee Windrider moved among the haunted stone freeing spirits entirely from the control of the Scourge. Selecting the strongest and most coherent banshee among the spectral throng Lynet worked to ensure that when hostilities resumed there would be as much chaos as she could engineer in the limited time she had been given.

When their enemies began to show signs of renewed attack Lynet abandoned the fight and, accompanied by three liberated banshee, grabbed Jonathan and fled.

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Spike whistled gaily as he made his way through the sewers beneath sunny-hell. It had taken him several siamese kittens and nearly a week to beat the information out of some of his old contacts but he'd finally rediscovered the lair of the Nezzla demons he'd run afoul of during his search for the Ring of Amara. He'd gone after the ring instead of the Nezzla's orbs because apart from being a more vampire oriented artifact, the orbs were easier to damage. Not that it had helped him in the end, thanks to his boasting, but that was in the past.

Now he had a chance to be human.

Spike chuckled to himself. He had to admit, it wasn't something he'd ever have thought he'd want, being a vampire had been a dramatic improvement over his old mortal life and for nearly 150 years he'd gone out of his way to thoroughly enjoy it. But between losing Dru and getting attached to the Slayer this last year… he had some slightly skewed priorities. Speaking of said priorities… the party had just arrived.

Hiding to the right of the glowing, warded off cave entrance he pulled out a pair of trench knives and kissed the blades. Spike was a brawler and loved it, but some demons you just had to bring a little something more. The Nezzla for instance were eight feet tall, heavily muscled and covered in strips of hide that beyond simply being more than an inch thick was tougher than Rhinoceros leather. Pity that it was useless for making proper coats out of; but he was fond of the one he'd taken from the New York Slayer. For sentimental reasons if nothing else.

There was just one problem… The demons in the cave weren't coming out.

After about half an hour Spike got bored of hiding and started smoking. Four cigarettes later he began tossing rocks at the barrier, watching in amusement as they disintegrated in a roar of thunder. Finally he got up in front of the glowing orange light and began shouting taunts and insults at the creatures in the tunnels behind the cave entrance. He'd gone through nearly a dozen and a half languages insulting their mothers, their titanic progenitor, their honor and courage, the dead leader Nezzla'Khan whose orbs he was here to steal, and anything else he could think of before a voice like gravel thundered at him to get out of the way… in hebrew.

Spike turned around to give the interloper what for and ended up needing to duck a sledge-hammer like fist. The ropey skin of the appendage passed through the field without undue harm and Spike grinned broadly. "Let's get to it then, wanker!"

The creature was fast by human standards, but so was the vampire. Dodging the heavy, though relatively professional, sweeps of his opponent Spike gauged his opponent's speed and responded by punching at the passing strikes with the spiked hit of his knives. The strikes threw his opponent only slightly off balance causing it to overextend more and take longer to wind up for the next attack. The next few strikes were met with the blades of the knives, slashing open the wrists and forearms, causing the monster to roar in frustration more than pain.

The monsters hide **was** quite thick after all.

Quickly deciding his tactic wasn't working he went back to the spiked knuckles attack opening up the other demons defenses before leaping up on it's chest. Using ropes of flesh on its hips as footholds, he rammed the first trench-blade into the creatures breastbone and stuck the second into the opposite side of the monster's neck, dragging across the throat in a jerking sawing motion.

As the pair of them fell backwards with the momentum of the assault Spike was forced to dismount, dragging the first knife downwards when the Nezzla demon passed through the wards. There were about three seconds where the vampire and the Nezzla stared at each other, loathing in one face and savage exaltation in the other, before the pair acted as one motion. The beleaguered demon sought to roll over and drag itself the rest of the way into the portal towards safety, intending to continue the fight from just within the deadly barrier, dragging the aggressive vampire in with him should the opportunity present itself. Spike, having had the same thoughts and not wanting to lose his prey lunged forward and stabbed both of his knives into the demons ankles before grabbing one of the feet and doing his damndest to drag the creature out into his side of the magical barrier.

The Nezzla scrabbled against the rock floor as it was dragged out, finding purchase on a wedge of stone, thus far unmoved by the regular weighty foot travel. Spike heaved a couple of times, but while he had managed to expose most of the creatures back, he couldn't fight the brutes strength like he could it's weight. Growling, he let go with one hand and slammed his fist down into the ankle. When it failed to make the demon unclench its hands and move further into the portal he wrenched the knife in that ankle out and leapt forward, risking being incinerated by the demons ward to jam the blade into the creature's spine.

Spike worried for a moment that the thick skin had managed to shield it from his attack, but the creatures struggles quickly became erratic, indicating his blade had indeed gotten into the spine and was messing with the nerve cords there. With a grimace and a change in leverage he managed to shove the blade all the way into the creature and it's lower half went limp. WIth a jerk he snapped the handle off and kicked the spot, insuring that even if it could heal quickly, the blade would be stuck in there keeping the damage in place.

The Nezzla roared with the action and finally let go momentarily. Wasting no time, the Vampire pulled it past the ability to grab on once more and began the laborious task of reeling it back in. When he'd finally managed to pull it the rest of the way out, he finished carving his opponents Columbian Necktie and stabbed it in the head. The Nezzla was, thankfully, one of those demons who didn't dissolve when they died, being extradimensional in origin rather than strictly mystical. His opponent dead he made with the messy business of skinning the beast as per his contacts instructions.

He was most of the way through skinning the beast when another group of assorted demons wandered through the tunnels where he was. The group took one look at the disposition of spikes Victim and screamed something about 'Adam' before running off down the tunnels the way they had come. Spike fought not to laugh, remembering the cyberpunk frankenstein and his penchant for dissections before hurrying to finish his task. If they kept screaming like that, it wouldn't be long till some of the demons who remembered ADAM's reign nostalgically came sniffing about and he didn't have time to deal with them. If the rest of the Nezzla weren't inside to respond to his insults then that meant they'd be on their way back soon and as fun as it had been to fight one or even two Nezzla, even Spike wasn't confident he could fight the whole warband.

Working faster (and sloppier) Spike quickly fashioned himself a skinsuit from his fallen foe and strode confidently through the barrier. The instructions from the warlock had been a cloak of flesh, would fool the wards but he was no reason to take chances. Once on the other side, his skinsuit smoking slightly, spike shed the gooey garment and rushed forward. After three dead ends where he found the larder, the sleeping den and a cave with a hole in the top to let in cable TV (the vampire genuinely smiled at that) he finally found the armory and treasure room.

There, on a stone ledge, lay the orbs.

The orbs were a sort of achilles heel type mystical doohickey. Two red crystalline balls said to be forged from the congealed blood of a primordial demon like the snake thing the mayor had tried to become, they were crowned by a pair of carvings denoting circular bands of runes. Going by the information he'd gotten there were seven orbs in total, each providing a different power, but these two were supposed to grant the strength and durability possessed by the creature they had been created from. There was a slight discrepancy in that the book claimed the one he now held in his right hand would grant invulnerability while his source implied it would only make him as hard to kill as the godlike demon itself had been, but both agreed that should either of it orbs leave his person or be destroyed he would lose their benefits immediately.

While nice, normally he wouldn't bother with them. How did you protect something like that from being destroyed if you were moving with ever increasing arrogance into dangerous situations? He'd learned that lesson with the Gem of Amara. Thing was… he was about to give us his immortal power as a vampire and Spike absolutely refused to be swept under the rug. Keeping the Slayer's interest as a human meant either being family or being badass in some manner. As the Vampire Spike, he was badass, and the nibblet loved him; but William Prat the Human was nothing. He'd been nothing before he became a vampire and Spike was worried he'd be nothing again once Jonathan's blood resurrected him.

That absolutely must not happen.

Taking an orb in each hand Spike used his, admittedly pathetic, mystical knowledge to channel magic through the bloodstones. Two corona of mixed black and purple energy blossomed out of the orbs before sinking into him and Spike shuddered as a feeling like Slayer blood came over him. Carefully he slipped the orbs into a small pouch he'd brought with him and tucked them away in his coat. Walking over to the wall he punched the wall of the cave and his fist went through the stone like it was cardboard while the cavern shook around him.

"Bloody hell," he laughed "I could get used to _this!_ " Although, he thought through the elation, that was probably the exact problem, elation and the feeling of invulnerability, when one lucky strike was all it would take before he became vulnerable again.

Speaking of… Spike pulled out the dart and poked it into his arm. ...only the needle wouldn't penetrate. If course it wouldn't. He felt like kicking himself. Make yourself bloody invulnerable and then try something that includes hurting yourself. Brilliant! Or was it? His face morphed into the vampire ridges and his canines extended. If the points of his fangs were as durable as the rest of him, it stood to reason that they'd be able to pierce his skin just like they'd been able to before, and he wouldn't have to discard the gems in a potentially dangerous situation while making himself even more vulnerable by becoming mortal.

There was some slight resistance as the magic tried to resolve the conundrum of which should be the greater force, but within seconds, there was a flash of black and purple and spoke had exposed a vein on his wrist. Moving the dart to the wound he triggered it...and nothing happened. He'd already damaged the needle. Growling slightly, he tore open the casing with his fingers and splashed the blood on the wound.

The effect was instantaneous. For a short eternity every nerve in spikes body was on fire. Every muscle clenched taught and the blood demon which had stood in for his soul for so long felt as if it was being torn apart. Unlike Angel when this had happened to him, he didn't have a soul to be properly resurrected with. The animating spirit keeping him going was the curse the blood was seeking to remove and the paradox was agonizing. Though it only took half a second for the competing powers of Nezzla'khan, Vampire animation, and Moh'Ra regeneration to resolve the issue Spike fell to the ground eyes glowing a bright violet and utterly exhausted.

For the first time in over a century, William Pratt felt the warmth of a soul and the beat of his heart.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The reason for the quick response of the scourge to Jonathan and Lynet's camp was because of their proximity to the Deatholme. A mere 70 miles from where they had killed Masophet the entire area was heavily populated by all types of undead. The surprising thing was not that they had been swarmed, but that they had managed to work as long as they had in peace before it happened. Lynet decided it had to do with the necromancers in command of the forces. The elven survivors had made an almost decade long career of ambushing any small group of lone undead and burning the bodies, much as they had done for 3000 years before with the conflict against the trolls.

Quel'thalas had suffered greatly three times in history to warm tactics however, losing significant portions of its population to the trolls, the Orcs and then the undead. The first time they had been saved by an alliance with the humans of Arathor, but not so these two recent wars. Thus it was that the scourge determined it was likely best to retaliate in large numbers. A happy coincidence that had allowed their prey to escape.

Now, Lynet, Jonatan and three of Lynet's freed specters made camp atop the peaks surrounding the Deatholme, allowing their human to rest while they planned their revenge against the one who had made Quel'Thalas ultimate fall possible.

Dar'khan Drathir.

Once a talented and noble elf, Dar'khan was a former member of the Convocation of Silvermoon. A magister of extreme talent and power even among elves, he had been born in the golden age after the troll wars and the resulting alliance with Humanity. Though the noble elf had risen quickly through the ranks of the highborn, aided by his talent and bloodline, Dar'khan had always been a greedy creature. Not satisfied with power, prestige, leadership and as much light and arcane power from the sunwell as a mortal could want, Dar'khan felt he was being slighted by not being recognized as one of Quel'thalas legendary figures and given complete and unfettered access to the elves font of power to satisfy his curiosities.

After seeing the brutality and strange mystical might of the orcs and their powers of Necromancy, Void and Fel magics, Dar'Khan had begun experimenting with the forbidden elements in secret. In the 14 years between the second and third wars Dar'khan's gluttony had twisted into depravity and he had begun talks with Ner'zhul. The former orc shaman turned warlock was now the Lich King and gathering to itself all Necromancers and undead across the planet of azeroth, promising them freedom from persecution, power, glory and immortality in exchange for service to him first and the Legion later.

Dar'khan had agreed, approaching Arthas Menethil, the Lich King's champion, when they had come to steal the sunwell. It had been Dar'Khan's betrayal that had let the Scourge bypass the siege wards of Light, Arcane and Elemental magics which had safeguarded the core of High Elven civilization from both the Troll Empire and Orcish Horde in the past.

With elven civilization in ruins and his betrayal complete, Dar'Khan now spent his days within the city fortress of Deatholme. Dar'Khan resided in the Tower of the Damned, a bone-forged necropolis dedicated to converting flesh and death magic into the substance known as Ichor of Undeath. The ichor was an advanced form of plague that was used to poison the land itself, twisting anything it touched into desecrated ground where necromancy would be stronger than any other form of magic. The substance was also used by enchanters among the Necromancers to imbue weapons and armor with dark curses and the strength of various abstract concepts involving entropy. Among numerous cruel and debilitating effects, a general favorite enchantment was Leech, which would allow the user to draw power from the blood or souls of those they harmed or even the environment itself.. While the mechanics offered by the Ichor could be performed by spellcraft easily enough, it held the important distinction of making the process of enchantment or corruption capable of being used in mass by any undead. In effect, the ichor meant that the scourge could become a plague on a land or population by their mere presence without the bottleneck of trained necromancers holding them back.

Aside from the plagued sludge dribbling out of the necropolis, the city was protected by life leeching walls, hostile ziggurats at each corner of the city and the dozen or so butcher shops that housed, created and defended the various creatures and artifacts of deatholme, nine Whispering Pillars ringed Dar'khan's necropolis providing a powerful connection with the Lich King in far distant Icecrown Glacier. The pillars were important because their presence greatly increased the cohesion and thus power of the undead hivemind while still active. As such, Lynet's tactic from the recent battle of turning the undead against their masters was a risky one at best. Deadly at worst.

" _Our first target should be the butcher shop at the eastern side of the city,_ " the banshee which had followed us rasped. " _It's isolated and we'll need physical forms to hide behind now that we're free._ "

" _Agreed,_ " hissed a wraith. " _Further, with our captive unable to pass through the walls without being drained it is best not to forget ourselves and leave him behind._ " It looked at Jonathan eyes burning a cold white. " _I look forward to living once more, Alchemist Levinson._ "

" **Do we have any preferences to body type?** " Asked the third ghost, a poltergeist with a posh accent calling himself Arcanist Starpetal. " **While I would love to be an myself again, an elf may be too obvious a disguise.** "

Lynet shook her head. " _ **Elf is the most common type of corpse in the crypts. Obvious or not, that commonality should actually help make us anonymous. Animating a less common body would make those in charge question what we are doing so far from our own Necropoli. The difficult part is what comes after getting our bodies. Starpetal, I need you to assist Jonathan in making mana bombs and planting them in the whispering pillars. Watch him closely and see what you can do about keeping yourselves hidden. He's the tricky sort...**_ "

The poltergeist nodded. " **Gnome,** " he said shortly, as if that explained everything.

Lynet nodded as well and continued. " _ **And is prone to throwing out surprises at inconvenient times. With the pillars down organization of the scourge will be in chaos and with the Lich King weakened and generally inactive these past years we may even get another forsaken situation on our hands. Beyond challenging the scourge presence in Quel'thalas and giving our brethren some breathing room that attack should cover for our assassination and subsequent escape.**_ "

" _What about the other commanders?_ " the wraith asked.

" _And the necromancers._ " Added the banshee. " _Either could exert control over the local swarm before their souls have time to wake up and regain their willpower._ "

"That's what the bombs are for." Jonathan replied his mouth full. Swallowing a mouthful of venison jerky he continued. "Lynet told me back when she was in charge that with the exception of the ones on duty in the butcher shops, Ziggurats and field the necromancers reside almost exclusively in the tower of the damned. Since the whispering pillars make a ring between the outer blocks and the inner fortress detonating them will have a cumulative effect on anything at their center." everybody stared at him. "What? I've planned alot of campaigns for dungeons and dragons. Theorycrafting strategy and nasty traps are the basics."

Lynet nodded, looking at the short human oddly. " _ **Correct. Like a piece of metal placed between a hammer and an anvil the powerful spirits inside, Drathir in particular will be crushed. And if they don't die from the spell wave then they'll be weak enough for us to go in and finish them off. Unfortunately to move the bombs and get close, we'll need bodies which won't be looked at twice.**_ "

"What about Phylacteries?"

" _ **Not an issue. Drathir was too proud to put his soul in a jar and Arthas wanted him punished for trying to steal the Sunwell out from under Ner'Zul's nose. Instead of becoming a Lich and growing more dangerous our enemy is a powerful ghost and much of his magic is bound up in maintaining his original body. It doesn't make our job much easier though, as he was an incredibly powerful mage to begin with. He personally slew most of the convocation who were incredible mages in their own right, AND many of the guardians of the sunwell who were our elite.**_ "

Everybody nodded, looking somber at that. Anything that weakened their enemy was a bonus. Jonathan himself didn't know the significance of many of the things discussed, but they certainly sounded impressive. Still, a bunch of highschoolers had managed to kill a demon lord during his graduation ceremony with a pile of explosives, Magic bombs should work just as well on a scary powerful ghost.

Conversations done, they made their way to the scourge fleshworks. The Butcher Shop was much like the name implied. While the sunken lower portions were a combination of crypt and mass grave, the upper levels held literally hundreds of bodies suspended by chains and meat hooks. The floor of each level held adjustable examination tables where all sorts of things were assembled, from bulbous abominations, to bizarre bone golems, to Lich of varying levels. The shop floor is a bustling place filled with rotting ghouls, emaciated necromancers and spirits of all types as they worked to create more horrors for the scourge. On this floor alone there were five abominations in various stages of production and a cluster of Lich were fusing souls into strung-together pile of bones they were calling a soul harvester.

The group moved in formation, as much to make it seem like they belonged there as to keep Jonathan protected or penned in. The banshee, which would not give a name, and the specter who claimed to have forgotten his, flanked Jonathan while Starpetal who was most familiar with the layout of the city and its buildings took the lead. Lynet took the rear, looking imperious and seeming to dare anyone question her odd presence. Some still looked with interest at the powerful spirit in their midst but with envy rather than suspicion, regarding her to be a unique creation of the Lich King's favor.

They made it into the catacombs with little effort and began examining piles of bodies. Jonathan wrinkled his nose and tried not to vomit everything he'd recently eaten and more. The undead were cool as a thought experiment, great as a horror genre for entertainment, but even the undead soldiers he'd fought earlier today and the wasteland they'd traveled through recently hadn't prepared him for the careless piles of bloated corpses. The closest thing he'd had to deal with was the half dozen or so dead at graduation; most of the other casualties having been dragged off by the vampires and other demons. It was infinitely more chilling when you could see their milky eyes staring at you, flys buzzing in and out of their mouths and wounds.

It took a little while, but eventually the four ghosts found bodies they liked and slipped into them. The Wraith chose a young elf boy with black hair whilst the banshee went for an older woman with blood red hair and much of her torso missing. Starpetal in contrast to his three companions took a burly half-elf in mossy robes and shrugged when they looked at him oddly. Lynets new body was a woman she recognized, but when she entered the corpse it began to stiffen. The body began to bleed into a starry black with white highlights just as had happened to the skull she had inhabited the day before. As the entire body became infused with the radiant black ectoplasm it began to fill out numerous missing sections of flesh and emaciation, once more returning to approximately the same form Lynet had possessed just prior to taking the body; only she seemed to be more substantial than she had been before. Her face was a mix of the one she'd had on coming out of the skull and the body she'd just inhabited and instead of a corona of white flame atop her head the bodies hair had become silken strands of brightly glowing white thread that hung down her back.

Jonathan looked her up and down, noting the new, but hardly unpleasing distribution of curves. The fairly revealing and somewhat ragged red and gold elven clothing actually seemed to enhance the image more than her earlier spiritual semi nudity had. "Do you think you still have enough blood to make the dart work?" he asked.

Lynet's new face twisted into a grimace. " _ **If not I'll work something out.**_ " She thought for a moment then nodded as if she had a plan. " _ **Let's go.**_ "

Now taking the lead, Lynet trooped them out of the Slaughter House and through the sparse patrolling undead to the necropolis. Hiding in the shadow of the Tower of the Damned where the Ichor poured out in a stream Lynet stuck her hand into the stream and began casting Flesh Crafting. As she worked the substantial feeling Jonathan got at looking at her became firmer in his mind as green sludge vanished. Starpetal quickly did the same filling out his body till it looked freshly dead and helped the other two patch up their bodies using the ichor as a base for their transformations. An Ironic subversion of its intended purpose.

After that it was time to make the bombs. Lynet and the other two went inside the Tower of the Damned to scout and ensure Drathir was in residence while Magister Starpetal led Jonathan in creating the devices. While they worked, Starpetal explained the process behind the magical devices and answered Jonathan's question on what had gone wrong with his earlier attempt. "You were trying to fit a complex concept into too simple a diagram," the elf remarked when he was done with the story. "Also, you used the wrong element. Arcane, fire, earth, light wind and fel make good explosions, the others not so much. Death magic, like it's mirror, the life element, is very willing to stabilize and form elemental beings, so making explosion with it is tricky. In the web of magic Life and Death are often debated by scholars to be more polarities of the same element, spirit, which forms the core of all elemental beings. Just gathering it raw like that was bound to fail. What's more surprising though is that Lynet hasn't faded back into a banshee already. What you did was syphon raw magic, not essence. Her transformation should have been over after she expended the power, such as in the battle where she freed us."

Jonathan looked pensive at that. "That could have something to do with the skull I used. It had only recently held a skeletal mage of some power. Lynet said his name was Masophet the Black. When I wrote the circle it was supposed to draw in the type of power in the skull… you don't think?"

"Masophet?" The other mage asked, looking at the smaller boy incredulously. "Yes, yes that would do it. If you'd recently destroyed him your spell could have stripped his spirit of much of its essence. That would explain Lynet's lingering transformation. Just how did you defeat him? I knew Jurion Masophet when he was alive; the murderer was no easy opponent then, and he wouldn't be much less dangerous dead."

"Ah, well," the warlock temporized "I was dueling him and while he was distracted Lynet possessed an abomination and scattered his bones. His skull was one of the few bones still intact."

The half-elf laughed and handed Jonathan a runed box he'd made from the Ichor laden earth. "Fill this with Ichor. It'll serve the Scourge right to be destroyed by their own creation."

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Lynet and her two companions stalked the halls of the Necropolis, doing their best to present an aura of authority. More than stealth, refuge in audacity often worked better when among what was perceived to be one's own kind. Not among a known enemy of course, but that was the beauty of the scourge. Everyone here was just another ghost in a shell.

Shells Lynet was only too happy to crack open.

To that end Lynet and her minions ambushed the first lone warlock and undead warrior they found, stripping their exorcised corpses of clothing to enhance the disguise. Lynet lamented that they couldn't kill too many of the monsters that infested the tower, lest they be discovered and their prey escape, but so long as Drathir was here, the bombs would take care of the rest. They had a good elven battlemage making them after all, what could Jonathan possibly do to screw it all up?

Shaking her head to get rid of the uneasy feeling that thought gave her, Lynet pushed her way deeper into the necropolis. Due to the peculiarity of undead group though, and perhaps the simple barbarism of their orcish leader Ner'Zhul and their troll inspired architecture, the floorplans of undead buildings had few doors, and those that did exist were always open to accommodate the high foot traffic of the unliving swarm. The three infiltrators passed dwellings, laboratories and surprisingly well stocked kitchens for those members of the Cult of the Damned who still had yet to 'ascend to eternity'. Her starry white eyes burned with rage at the thought of such traitors, but she pushed it down, focusing on her search.

After nearly an hour of, essentially, wandering the halls, the trio found their prey in a large open chamber in the bowels of the structure. The room was vaguely triangle shaped and opened to a ramp between two more pillars like the ones outside. At the back of the room on the third point of the triangle was a throne-like indentation. The walls and floor were an amalgamation of green metal and bones that gave Lynet the creeps. In the chamber were seven figures. Three unadorned skeletons illuminated by blue white flames that filled in for organs and musculature; two necromancers (one living the other freshly dead) in black satin robes with staves like Masophet had held, Dar'khan Drathir in his elaborately tailored jerkin, high boots, cape and hat… and an image in armor to which they were all bowing.

In the middle of the room was the projection of Arthas Menethil bedecked in the void infused truesilver armor of the Lich King Ner'zhul. " _ **Do you understand your mission, Drathir?**_ "

"Of course, my lord Arthas!" Dar'khan's voice was excited. "My redemption is at hand! I shall travel south to the Alterac lowlands immediately!"

" _ **Good. Do not fail me again, elf. Another betrayal like the last one and you shall beg for oblivion.**_ " The image flickered for a moment and looked over at the trio in the doorway and Lynet stared back, cool and defiant, as if she belonged there. " _ **Take these three with you. These powerful servants of the scourge shall keep you on task…**_ "

With that, the image faded away.

The elven mage glowered at them, cold fury lighting his eyes with power. "And who are you wretches that would hold my leash? As if I were not loyal, as if I had not proven myself again and again to my lord Arthas?"

Before Lynet could act, offering her prepared story of death knight and her minions, the wraith in his adolescent corpse skipped forward. " _Jurion the Deceiver, Lord Drathir,_ " he said, bowing. " _At your service_."

"Jurion?" the elf asked. "My lieutenant and assassin Jurion the shade? How did you surv..." Then his eyes lifted to Lynet "You..!"

A skull forged of shadowy blue black death magic slammed into the former elven senator's shields as a clawed arm of those same energies grabbed the smaller undead and reeled him in. "You _Idiot!_ " she howled at him, blasting the former shade out of his recently claimed body. The spirit that came out was much more complete than the vaguely shaped shadow it had been; now more like a ghost of who he might have been in life.

Lynet turned to the banshee who stood at her shoulder still. "If you're not going to betray me as well, take care of those two, Drathir and his pet are mine!"

The woman nodded and drew in a breath for a scream, launching herself at the still living necromancer. As her minion began her attack, Lynet blocked an attack from Dar'khan with her magic destroying banshee wail and lept back to avoid the now bladed hands of Jurion's ghost. As the ghost passed by she grabbed the offending arm with one hand and slammed her other hand through and into his core before unleashing her wail. Upgraded as it was by consuming the disenchanted exorcists bone, Jurion went rigid, spasming in time with the notes of the scream before exploding into blue black fire. As a shadow image of the new truly dead wraith flew off into that unreachable point in her death sense, Lynet consumed the essence left behind, growing stronger just in time to take a blast of ice from Dar'khan.

The banshee's wail destroys magic, weakening or even preventing spells from being cast within its area of effect. That Dar'khan had been able to get a spell off at all with one banshee wailing constantly to suppress the undead traitors attendant necromancers was impressive. That his ice nova had managed despite this to coat the entire chamber in almost a centimeter of ice was absolutely terrifying. Even as the ice was quickly rattling apart from the continued wail of the other banshee, who had been faced away from the blast, Drathir threw first one, then two explosive handfuls of fire at his aggressor, shattering his own ice and blowing her back to the ramp.

"You!" Dar'khan sneered, as he stalked forward, sickly light devouring energy gathering over his hands. "I recognize that soul! Lynet Windrider, you lucky shrew. I had wondered who it was my forces were chasing. When Masophet's other half came back I had wondered what happened. Who did you whore yourself out too to escape my control and gain such power?"

"Like I'd tell you, _traitor!_ " the other said, regaining her feet after a brief moment of intangibility. " _You_ ' _ **ll die in ag**_ _ **ony for what you DID TO QUEL'THALAS!**_ " she roared, charging him and pouring power into her wail.

Drathir let loose with the all consuming black power of the void, tendrils of shadow licking forth hungrily to consume air, light, magic and anything else it could. Death magic, agitating the air the void was consuming was very similar in nature to void and often worked well in harmony with the element due to their shared entropic nature. Fortunately for Lynet and unfortunately for Dar'khan, as the voice devoured the magic combating death scream, it destabilized, allowing the suicidal charge to succeed and the elf found himself tackled by the raging elemental being.

"NO!" the former councilman shouted, eyes flashing first purple and then olive green of fel magic. "You do not understand! Our lord has give me a mission!" he reasoned with her as the fractured light of green flames wreathed him, forcing the ghost woman back from where she was punching him, trying to push her ethereal form past the enchantments on his armor to grasp his soul. "I have been given another chance to collect the sunwell! Your suffering is meaningless before that goal! Join me and I will even share it with you!"

Lynet backed away mind boiling with fury at being denied. The situation had fully fallen apart, rendering her earlier plan useless. She could only hope Jonathan and Davion Starpetal had been able to finish their bombs without being accosted by rest of deatholme in the meantime. Because Dar'khan was telling the truth, then he was right. Her suffering meant nothing when compared to the threat of this... _fiend_ getting his hands on the sunwell. How that could be true, she only had vague theories involving essence, but the Sunwell had been a source of nearly unlimited power and for her enemy to claim even a fraction of it would spell disaster. She wasn't sure what would be worse, that Dar'khan would have such power under the command of the scourge, or that he might use that same power to escape them and act on his own initiative.

" _ **There is nothing you could offer me that would be worth allowing you to possess the power you destroyed our home for.**_ " she hissed, her unnatural voice cutting through the other banshee's wail to reach his ears as a whisper.

"I could offer you LIFE!" Dar'khan retorted. "With the heart of the sunwell beating within me I would be a god! It would be within my power to grant such trifles! Help me! Show me that genius I was forced to quash when you refused my gifts last time, and you could be one of my angels, a being on the level of the the wild gods of old, free from any controls but my own orders! Imagine what we could do for this world! For Quel'thalas? Under my power we could finaly forge a pure world for the elves to inhabit without the plague of the lesser races or the horror of the orcs and their scourge!"

Lynet's eyes flickered over to the other banshee who by now had finished off her four targets, powerless as they were before the two women's combined screams. Their gazes met and lynet nodded. " _ **NEVER!**_ " She howled, pouring all of her power into her scream, causing the olive flames of demonic magic to gutter out even as winged forms began to gain clarity within its swirling depths.

Dar'khan didn't get a chance to reply as the enchantments on his armor were finally washed away and a ghostly hand burst from his chest. Lynet surged forward and joined her sister in dragging the other elf's soul out of his body. The traitorous mage resisted mightily, magic sparking all over his body in defiance of the act, arcing between his slowly separating forms as both gave off unearthly howls worthy of of a banshee's cry on their own, but failing to contain the same magical impact. Dar'khan, for all his undead existence, held too much of his power in other elements, the order of arcane magic in particular, to achieve the right dissonant tone.

Finally, with a minor explosion as accompaniment, the two ghosts held their tormentor in their ethereal claws. Drathir struggled and screamed for mercy as the two vengeful spirits savaged his ethereal form.

As the traitors spirit finally succumbed to the attacks, leaving the mortal world as scattered pieces even their watcher would be unable to gather, the two women finally noticed their audience.

Crowding the ramp and the halls behind it were an assortment of Lich, necromancers, skeletal mages and bone harvesters. "Capture their souls for the scourge..." rasped one of the bone Lich near the front of the mob. "The Lich King reigns eternal. None escape."

The two women looked at each other and the nameless banshee dove out of her redheaded shell and into Dar'khan's body. As her ethereal form disappeared and the male elf's form shuddered, it's eyes turned to Lynet and s/he said "See you on the other side!" before the body became intangible and sank into the floor to the howls and occasional pursuit of their new audience. Lynet closed her eyes and with a brief moment of concentration stepped out of her armor and into the redheaded form. Immediately on settling in she became intangible herself and followed suit.

Passing through the strange green metal that had been used as mortar for the bones of the necropolis was… difficult. Painful and disconcerting were good words for it. The substance offered a great deal of resistance despite the pair of ghosts not being properly within the same reality it inhabited, but there was an advantage with the strange material. Where it was hard for them to pass through, it was just as difficult for their pursuers to do the same, and impossible for the majority of their enemies.

As Lynet found her way into blessedly unresisting dirt she nearly collapsed back into reality, exhausted. Where the Ichor earlier had made the other side of feel closer even as it had filled her with a feeling of power, the strange material she had just passed through had tried its best to strip that from her, and worse, had whispered in her soul, offering a glimpse into a place far different and altogether more terrifying than the uncertainty of what truly lay on the other side of death.

 _You ok?_

Lynet looked up to see the dual image of her partner superimposed as she was by Drathir's body… her new acquisition.

 _Yes,_ she replied _why… why did you take his form? You know what it means to our race, don't you?_

The floating woman giggled. _Sort of, I guess. But it's not really all that personal to me. You see… not only elves became banshee._ With that enigmatic statement the other surged upwards to where Lynet could perceive two souls, one living one dead, standing beside an enormous amoeba like power, strong enough to be a spirit dwarfing her own but too diffuse to manifest sentience.

 _The Ichor_ she thought, ascending _so that's what it looks like without eyes._

Within moments she had caught up to her remaining allies and resolidified, not even noticing how her strange discoloration had not yet shown up with this latest body. " _Jonathan, Starpetal, set the bombs, we need to go. Now!_ "

The two men stared at her, jonathan's brows quirking whilst starpetal's half-elven face settled on horror as he stared at Dar'khan's face. "Who the fuck are you two?"

" _That's the betr..._ " The apparently non-elven banshee cut him off.

"Drathir is finished, Jonathan." She said forcefully, copying Lynet's tones, to the real elf's astonishment. "The plan fell apart and I took his body as a trophy. But were about to be overrun. Starpetal, set your bombs to detonate and let's get as far away as we can as fast as we can. We've got no time to argue."

"Where's the other guy?" Jonathan insisted, as the half-elf got to work, biting his finger and muttering as he wiped it across the runes each of the seven finished bombs.

" _He didn't make it._ " Lynet hissed. There would be time to explain later how they had been betrayed and infiltrated by another of Dar'khan's lieutenants. " _Let's go._ "

Jonathan looked at her sharply, recognition in his eyes, and nodded. Turning into a wraith Jonathan led the flight upwards as Starpetal tossed the last of his bombs into the pool of corruption.

Their flight was marked by a barrage of spirits from the now active scourge Ziggerats, but by the time the explosives detonated none of them had yet caught up with their fleeing prey. As the four fleeing renegades ascended into the clouds a grey light blossomed from the heart of deatholme. The human boy turned to watch it, captivated as the entire city seemed to turn to freeze in place and age as if caught in a timelapse animation before being drawn into a shuddering point at the center.

When the effect ended, and it did, suddenly, the entire city fortress of deatholme and all of abominations within had vanished alot with a perfect sphere that had been gouged out of the mountain side. Air rushed to fill in the void and Jonathan could swear he heard cruel laughter coming from the center of the devastation, but by that point he and his companions no longer cared. It was done.

That chapter in their lives… was over.


	5. Aftershocks

Buffy Summers hummed softly as she bit into an apple juice soaked oreo. Thinks had been slow since glory died and the elves began to set up, but while it was nice to decompress after the yearly apocalypse, time to chill meant time to think, which generally just seemed to be 'of the bad' these days. Xander and Anya had declared their intent to marry, which should have made her happy, but really just brought back thoughts of her three failed boyfriends.

Oh, she had made a show of being excited and happy for him, but her oldest friend had seen through it and talked to her in private later, telling her not to give up. Giles too had been on the hope and change bandwagon, urging her to take the profits from the sale of the Moh'Ra blood and pay off bills. She was still insisting on getting a job and taking care of it herself, but between Giles stern logic and the sheer size of mom's cancer treatment charges she was beginning to break down.

Which brought her to last night.

Around two AM she was on patrol near the bonze, because they were closing and it was a good time to catch vampires in the middle of lunchables, she had managed to walk in on a Fyarl demon shaking down a cop. According to Giles, who had briefly turned into one earlier this year, Fyarl were essentially the thugs of the underworld. Like mafia leg-breakers only more grr and horns demony. They were easy to summon, marginally intelligent, weak willed and easy to control… so long as your orders were simple and involved breaking something.

She had knocked the demon around for a little bit before becoming bored and breaking off one of it's wickedly sharp ram horns and stabbing it in the leg with the length of bone. The creature had run off before she could do the same to the other leg, or try to slip the horn between its ribs to curve into the heart or a lung. Their hides could deflect anything not made of wrought iron or their own bone and claws, as she'd learned several months ago when Ethan Rayne had been in town.

The beast dispatched, she had prepared to leave, by now used to not being thanked, or often even acknowledged by the cities residents after an incident. This cop however grabbed her shoulder as she turned away, and hugged the surprised slayer before quickly letting go.

Then he had offered her a job.

As it turned out, the old mayor Mr. Wilkins the first, second and third, had left provisions for the Sunnydale PD to hire troubleshooters, beat cops and even detectives in an official capacity right off the street based on their capacity for surviving the town's nightlife. Generally this didn't mean fighting, but rather running away, negotiating or over-lording various demon types on a regular and successful basis. Now that said immortal mayor Warlock was dead, the Sunnydale PD would be happy to hire the slayer for both regular and freelance operation.

So long as she understood that some nests were simply off limits due to being paid up with the new government.

Honestly, Buffy didn't know what to think about that. Wilkins administration was bad; it saw 9,000 people per year disappear into dark alleys and sewers, never to return. Nearly 25 people a day, for over a century. Until she had come to town. Wilkins had kept the property prices low, encouraged foreigners to immigrate and given tax breaks to families with multiple kids and new businesses, but with a death toll that could compare with major organized crime cities. The arrival of the Demon Research Initiative had been almost as bad in a different way. Though the human death toll had gone down almost by the same degree it had when Buffy had arrived in sunnydale, they had very nearly unleashed a plague of heavy weapon equipped super intelligent demon frankenstein on the world. And now the new mayor was turning Sunnydale into Shadowrun.

…Buffy choked on her latest oreo. Gah! Xander had corrupted her. Poor brain, going all geeky…

Still. Between all of that, and Dawn sneaking into the house last night around 4am, Buffy figured she needed some comfort food. Thus, oreos, apple juice and pancakes,.. Which she very much needed to flip; where was that spatula?

Turning her slightly burnt blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes over to cook on the other side, Buffy was distracted from her thoughts and breakfast by a knock at the door. Muttering darkly, the blond warrior headed for the door, expecting to see Giles, back for another argument. Or perhaps a simple pronouncement that he'd done what he needed to protect his slayer. Instead she found herself struck dumb by the figure standing in the doorway, lily white skin practically glowing in the bright morning sun.

"Hullo, Slayer." Spike drawled, smugness suffusing his entire demeanor. "Like the new duds? I was thinking of getting a tan…"

She grabbed his hands and forces them open, turning them over back and forth before looking up at him in shock. "How are you not burning? And sunlight is horrible with your complexion."

The vampire snorted. "Well bugger you too," he replied. Then he sniffed. "Are you making flapjacks?" he asked, now pushing past her, "Blimey I'm starving." He was through the living room and at the stove before she could stop him, scooping up one of her pancakes in his bare fingers and biting right into it right there. Buffy stared at him for a few moments as the moaning vampire stole her pancakes.

…Her pancakes!

In a flash she had joined him over by the stove and was pushing him out of the way, scooping up the other two fluffy disks of tasty goodness. ...ok, slightly burnt goodness, but whatever. "Hey! You! No, stop stealing my breakfast and make with the splainy! What's with the eating, and the sunlight and you being at my house, huh? These are all things not spike. I mean, you've certainly got the pusshy and annoying bit down, but what the hell?"

The bottle blond made a big production of swallowing his mouthful of food and holding the remains of the pilfered pastry out of her reach before he replied. "I, Slayer, have nabbed myself a shiny new soul. No more broody creature of the night for me, Peaches can keep that riff. As for how, you have jonny boy to thank for this, slayer. I always knew the right sort of demon blood could send you on a trip, but those Moh'Ra, that's strong stuff there." Seeing her shellshocked look he continued, more softly. "It's like I told you that night, luv. You may not feel anything for me, but you make me want to be a man."

She stared at him, completely stunned. Healing demon corrupted elves was one thing, but the implication that Moh'ra blood could bring vampires rocked her to the core. When she had visited Angel nearly two years ago at his office in LA, the ensouled vampire had claimed to be studying Moh'ra. He knew exactly how they fought and how to defeat them. Seemed downright afraid of them. Had… had he known? That he could become human? That he could have been with her, but refused the opportunity? She'd thought she was over the pain of him, but now it was all back as though it were fresh.

"Do… do you think Angel would..?"

Spike looked at the tears in his Slayer's eyes and grimaced. Speaking softly, he shook his head. "The bloody poof? No. While he had his soul he's too much the self torturing hero and when he doesn't he enjoys being a vamp far too much. Only chance you have of him using it is skulduggery."

Buffy wrapped her arms around herself and fell to her knees. "Must be tuesday," she whispered.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

An'telas fortress, at the gate of Zul'Aman was a creepy place these days. Far from the days when it was center of training for the farstriders and rangers, it's walls and streets were now lit with the cold blue light radiating from spirits rather than the soft violet of arcane lanterns or runic building mechanics. Different still from recent years, was the stillness that held over the city, as if the ghosts there were sleeping, or even more impossible, holding their collective breath. Either explanation might have been equally accurate, however the truth of their condition was the strain over the spirits minds at the new distance between them and their master, The Lich King. It was for this reason that none of them took notice of an the oddity taking place in the mage tower built into the cities south wall. In the windows of the aptly named 'sanctum of the sun' a flickering orange gold light shone out across the city, easily visible to anyone who still had eyes.

Within the tower was surprisingly clean for a literal war ravaged ghost town. Excepting a thick layer of dust the room was nearly undisturbed prior to the arrival of its four new occupants. The smooth stone walls were a soft cream color and rich red stained wood book cases covered much of the available wall space whilst a desk carved entirely out of tigers-eye-gemstone had recently dominated the center of the room. It was now pushed off to the side, blocking access to an oval full length mirror whose frame was made of a silvery blue metal and engraved with runes that still glowed faintly. Not that the luminescence was even noticeable anymore, in the light of the beachball sized fire elemental which crackled threateningly in where the desk had once sat.

The elemental in question, Calcifer, had been summoned by Starpetal in lieu of a fireball for Jonathan to cook with as a subtle threat to the unknown in their group who now wore Dar'khan's body. "What happened to the plan, Windrider?"

Lynet slipped out of the redhead's body, revealing her velvety black ghost body and the banshee did the same for with Dar'khan, which made Starpetal relax a great deal as the body slumped lifelessly against the desk. "There were complications." She replied grouchily. "The wraith revealed us to Dar'khan and when I began our defense, he attacked me. Whether he was on our side or not beforehand, he declared his loyalty during it. I shattered his essence and exorcised him. Then, while our undeclared banshee friend held the line, I did battle with the betrayer. Even through two banshee screams he still managed to cast mid level battle spells."

Their 'ally' nodded and spoke up, her feet up to the knees still lodged possessively within the archmage's body. "We managed to drag him out of his body and torture his soul until it broke. Lynet began eating the pieces and I followed suit. That's when the rest of the building fell on us. Probably every necromancer in Deatholme! Or at least all the ones with souls worth remembering their presence. I took the archmages body as a trophy,.. and to remove the chance they could use it to pull him back from the shadow realms."

" **Pull him back?** " Lynet asked scowling.

Jonathan shrugged and relied without thinking. "Sure, why not? It's not my specialty, but my library has a dozen or so spells to resurrect the dead as ghosts, zombies, Poltergeists slaved to one task or another. There's even a few for proper resurrections, but those generally deal with gods or demons who are more likely to eat you for an imperfect ritual than give back your lost friend."

The three undead stared at him, the two elves dumbstruck while the third ghost looked thoughtful. "Pretty much. I'm not entirely sure if the scourge is capable of retrieving spirits that have already succeeded in moving to the other side, but trolls are quite skilled at doing so. Most of their powerful artifacts contain souls of dead magic users from other races. Some are taken in battle, other during ritual sacrifice, but their favorite method is asking the Loa to help them search the shadowlands for powerful spirits long departed. They're not above resurrecting their foes or heroes in troll bodies either."

" _ **In troll bodies?**_ " Lynet asked, fury flooding her voice.

The banshee nodded absently. "Oh yes. In Zul'Aman, they keep entire temples full of carefully preserved bodies they call mummies precisely for that purpose. They have a motto, 'Da Amani neva give up, we neva forget, we... neva die'."

"And you intend to do the same thing with the body of Archmage Drathir." Starpetal cut in shrewdly. "Just who are you? And none of that crap you told us before about not remembering. That bit about the trolls was too specific."

The specter looked between the two other ghosts, who were glaring at her balefully and sighed. "I suppose if I don't tell you, Lynet is going to try and eat me?"

Jonathan raised his staff. "I could exorcise you, if that'd be more comfortable." he offered, amused.

Lynet cut briefly to glaring at him instead, but Jonathan failed to respond, having grown used to the elf woman's disapproval.

The unnamed banshee nodded however, and sank into her prize, animating it and pulling a random tome off the desk to clutch to her… Dar'khan's chest. It made for a fairly odd sight. "Before you broke me from the Lich King's control, I had been one of the dead orc's servants for almost a full decade. Not many people know this, but Ner'zhul was on azeroth building the scourge for nearly five years before before the fall of Prince Arthas Menethil. Three years before the exile of of Kel'thuzad and the formation of the Cult of the Damned. Back then I was known as Ysolde Darkwhisper."

"I was 17 years old when I first met Dar'khan Drathir. I had lived my whole life in Northdale Lordaeron, right at the border of Quel'thalas. My mother was a hedge witch, my father an herbalist and farmer, we supplied the city of Stratholme a decent portion of their apothecary stock. One day we came home to the tail end of a raid by the trolls of Zul'mashar and were captured along with nearly a quarter of the town. I spent a week in a cage watching my friends and family being sacrificed to the Loa for blessings and heroic souls from the other side, or stuffed into armor and weapons to fuel the armies power with special voodoo enchantments."

"Lord Garithos soldiers arrived on the third day and lay siege to the city, but couldn't get through. The trolls undying soldiers and terrifying weapons kept them at bay. On the seventh day they were nearly done with us, only me and a dozen others left, when the farstriders fell upon the trolls from behind. Instead of marching up the valley as Garithos had, they attacked from all sides, using enchanted weapons that glowed with light and kept the mummies down. It shouldn't have been enough though, because Garithos Knights had enchanted armor and Paladins as well, but then the temple where the high priests were making their bargains with the Loa exploded in an enormous fireball. Arcs of violet arcane power and torrents of fire poured out of the blood soaked masonry for nearly an hour before Archmage Drathir and Priestess Liandrin came out of the temple holding sacks full of the troll priests heads."

She laughed somewhat bitterly. "When Archmage Drathir set us free and questioned us about some of the elf prisoners who had been sacrificed before us, I offered to pledge myself as his servant. He had just saved my life after all, and as such a powerful mage, he'd surely have an enormous arcane library where he wouldn't notice if books went missing from time to time. Getting an arcane education in Dalaran is expensive and far from home, and the elves had refused my yearly requests since I was 11. I thought, maybe such a hero would take pity on a girl who'd just lost her family and accept free labor." She snorted. "He turned me down flat. Acted like I was something fowl he needed to scrape off his shoe." She said, shaking her savior's head, expression disgusted.

"Sooo… while Garithos and Drathir were distracting everybody with a very loud shouting match, I joined the soldiers and rangers cleaning up the remaining trolls in the city and quietly began looting the place. A tamed bear still lashed to a cart was bought with a honeycomb, a coy smile or tearful plea let me save the books from the fire, promising to sleep with one of the paladins convinced him to order the enchanted artifacts loaded into my cart 'so that they could be transported to hearthglen that the souls could be properly laid to rest'. Sleeping with him again on the road a week later let me slip out of camp with my cart still loaded and most of the paladin's jam preserves to bribe my bear. I sold the armor and items to Dalaran to pay for my education and kept most of the books, using them sparingly as bribes to get tutors… after I'd already finished reading them of course. That was actually how I got my surname. Many of the items the trolls items whispered to you when your attention wandered. It took me a while to figure out how to set the spirits free, but by then I'd earned a reputation and the name stuck."

"I joined the scourge a few years later, when I was 25." Seeing the two elves bristle at that, she held up Dar'khan's hands and gestured placatingly. "It wasn't willingly… or, well, sort of. It was because of my reputation and name actually. After I earned my last name and had progressed to the point of apprenticeship, my master Milo Trollbane took me and several of his other apprentices to northrend and the human kingdom of Amagar to study the Ice Trolls of Zul'Farrak. While we were there a nasty plague was sweeping the kingdom. Milo didn't want to be bothered by the problems of the locals so we set up camp just north of the Utgard ruins and prepared for the journey north."

"Kel'thuzad strolled into our camp during dinner and Milo greeted him with what honor we could provide, as the archmage had until recently been a member of Dalaran's ruling council and one of our chief researchers. He was polite, charming, somewhat arrogant but that's to be expected with such powerful archmages, and he offered to let my master and the rest of us in on an exciting new find further inland. A spider race with amazing and strange arcane knowledge. The only problem, he warned us, was that they were somewhat hostile and reluctant to part with their knowledge. Milo acted like Kel'thuzad was twisting his arm, but quickly agreed and we made a portal inland. Milo died two days later and Kel'thuzad began offering us training and enchanted items in exchange for staying on with him. The seven of us accepted, what else were we going to do when an opportunity to become the apprentices of one of the premier mages in our world offered to teach us?"

She laughed again, hollowly. "I should have known that moment it was too good to be true. A week later during a private lesson, I confronted him about some of the items he'd been giving us. They were powered by souls rather than magical essences but felt foul even compared to what I had learned meddling with troll knowledge. He told me about his glorious master Ner'zhul and the Burning Legion. How the Scourge could offer eternal life and immense power. Warned me that the Lich King was unstoppable and how it was better to put my formidable talents and impressive knowledge of death to good use that I may reap the rewards of service rather than face the wrath of those that opposed a dead orc puppet…"

She sat there silent for several minutes while while a clacking sound from Jonathan's strange grimoire was the only sound in the tower. "I refused," she bit out finally; interrupting Lynet who was about to speak. "Hah, I was arrogant myself. I thought because I knew what the trolls could do, had studied their dark magics for eight years and succeeded as an apprentice of a powerful mage I knew how to handle myself around a delusional necromancer and his cult. If nothing else I should have been able to get away, if not outright resist them. Kel'thuzad showed me just how wrong I was. It took me five days to die and I only lasted that long because he was using my torture to instruct lessons to the others. The last one, Joseph Spitfire, killed me in defiance. But that was only the beginning of my torment. I've been with the scourge ever since."

As she finished, Jonathan spoke up. "So, if you were one of the original banshee, and you became one up in northrend, why aren't you still there? I thought ghosts usually stuck to the geographic location where they died?"

Lynet answered that for him. " _ **The scourge doesn't follow such rules. You move with the swarm and stay at the whim of the commanders, the necromancers, Lich and Deathknights. Darkwhisper though, I know why you didn't want to tell us your name before. You're almost as famous as the body you've claimed as a trophy.**_ "

The possessed wo/man snorted. "It's all limelight and happenstance. Kel'thuzad kept me by his side as a memento of sorts, using me as his voice or assassin until his death at the hands of Prince Arthas. When that happened, I had hoped to be free, but instead was ordered by Ner'zhul to possess Arthas Squire, so the orc could keep an eye on his chosen champion and continue to manipulate him. I was little more than a glorified watch dog until Arthas picked up Frostmorne. For the next year while the prince slowly went mad, I was used as a distraction so that the cult of the damned could continue to operate in lordaeron more or less unbothered by priests and paladins of the light. They kept were too busy chasing me and my fellow ghosts to figure out just who was stalling their, largely successful, efforts to stamp out the remaining scourge in the country at the time. I didn't become important again until I was gifted to Dar'khan for agreeing to serve the Lich king. One of many gifts. He found it funny that though he had rejected me as a maid in life, he was now accepting me as a servant in death."

"Now, undead or alive, I'm getting the last laugh."

" _Your amusement shall be short lived, fool._ " Starpetal scoffed. " _Your head will be taken and your body burnt the moment you step into silvermoon. If not before._ "

Jonathan shrugged. "There's always flesh crafting, and I can regrow the head." he claimed, voice offhand, still tapping away. The three of them stared at him until he looked up, starting at the attention. "What?" He asked irritably. "Lynet threatened to reshape my body into her own as a young girl when we first met. Remodeling a face can't be half as difficult as that!"

Starpetal coughed and Lynet gave him a disgusted look. " _ **They are not yet inured to your capacity for the bizarre, gnome,**_ " she explained, irritated.

Jonathan nodded. Closing up his laptop and stowing it in his bag he brought out a trio of darts. With these he's only have four left. Until he could restock. "These potions," He said, holding up the darts so they could see the green blood in glass window "can restore life to the undead and cure curses and diseases. I've tested it on an abomination and a group of elves already. The abomination separated into several dozen living people and the elves lost their crippled blighted state and became pretty again." Lynet's gaze sharpened at the note about crippled elves, but Jonathan continued on, enjoying the rapt attention of the two specters. They had been told before that he could restore them to life, but not how, when or with what preparations.

"I'd planned to hit you all up after a short ritual, to test a theory you understand, but we can do it now it need be."

Lynet glared at him. " _ **What. Ritual.**_ " she asked, suspicious.

Jonathan tried to look innocent. "A modified version of the one we did last time." He replied brightly. "Mr Starpetal has given me alot of pointers on where I went wrong and this place really does need to be purged. After I started learning about magic back home, most of my ritual items were powered by the constant need to purge the area of dark magic. I figured that, since you mentioned elf cities were built on nexus, we could drain and purge a lot larger area than last time. I was rather looking forward to seeing what the potion would do to a being who was primarily composed of energy."

" _What sort of potion is this, Jonathan?_ " Starpetal asked, curious. " _I was never one for alchemy, but I've never heard one that be fired from a bullet…_ "

Jonathan shrugged. "That's because it cannot be drunk or applied to the skin. The potion is bloodborne. So long as you have blood to transmit it, it will work. It also breaks harmful magics and purges the body of toxins. Which is why I wanted to see what would happen to a creature who was as much magic as flesh. Would their power remain untouched if it wasn't harming the body? Would it be converted from it's current state into life force? Would it be dispersed as part of the healing process? If its the creatures nature that they're mostly energy how would the magic in the blood compensate for the strange health of whatever became of the magic?"

The three 'elves' looked at each other. "You're right, Lynet" Darkwhisper agreed "he is gnomish. I had wondered given his height and name if he might not just be a human runt or a skinny dwarf. He's so much like Krick Fizzlebang it's scary." She shook Dar'khan's head. "I think I may have something that could help you with your ritual though. The Trolls gods, the Loa are creatures of elemental life and death who become flesh through certain rituals. There was a great deal about it written in my books back in Dalaran. We can make the journey and mayhaps recover them later. It may answer some of your questions."

Jonathan nodded happily. "Do you remember enough from those books to help with the spell?"

Ysolde started to nod, but then switched to shaking her head. "Enough to make a new Loa, perhaps, but that's not something we want to do. It would be… very bad." Her gaze flickered towards Lynet for a moment, but gave no other indication of what she was thinking.

" _Right!_ " Davion Starpetal burst out, clapping his hands together. " _To business. Once Jonathan here has fed and rested we'll be heading into the city towards the ley tap. It was destroyed by the scourge during the original assault, but that's just as well for our purposes. For this endeavor it's best that the three of us remain dead until it's completion. It would have worked better had we not lost Jurion to treachery, but i have confidence I can make it work with Jonathan's recent adventures in necromancy acting as the balancing agent instead of Jonathan and Lynet as counterpoints for life and death._ "

With that he began to lay out the circle he and jonathan had been brainstorming since their long conversation forging bombs beneath the shadow of the necropolis.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Gamon Manathistle pursed his lips in concern as he watched Seras Goldenglade. It had been thirteen hours since they had discovered and excavated the silver plate beneath the School Library and she had been praying over it ever since. The girl was a quivering sweating mess now, held up mostly by the stiffness in her limbs and the rejuvenating presence of the Holy Light.

It had started out simply. They had entered the 'high school' thirteen hours ago and sought the source of the magic. The corruption, as predicted, had run thickest in the library, but a few quick detection spells had revealed that the source was not in the archive, so much as below it. Deep below. Seras had gone to her knees and began performing a consecration while he had begun casting arcane force spells to shatter the floor and shift the pieces out of the way. Things had been quite straightforward until they began trying to excavate the basement.

The earth was infused with an ungodly amount of void energy. In fact, the only thing stopping the ground beneath the high school from turning into dark matter or giving birth to void elementals was the large amount of unfocused fel energy and death magic also infesting the place. The chaos that characterized fel energy was destabilizing the entropic vacuum of the void and the death magic promoted things to break down, but both fel and void gleefully consumed the order he'd been using to attack it. To solve the problem he'd instead enchanted a number of tools around the site to shift the dirt and rock instead.

For the most part the ground hadn't been too difficult to make headway, with the tools deforming mostly by the forces needed to dig normally. Except in one area. That was how they had uncovered the disk; forged of some silvery material which was hard enough to blunt all his tools and take even his most potent and concentrated nether-spike without scratching. Upon being uncovered the disk began radiating void, fel, death and arcane magics in menacing waves, seeking to warp the pair that had uncovered it. Gamon had been required to take shelter in Seras golden aura to not be affected, something which hurt his pride.

Just as it had rankled during the second war when dalaran had been hard pressed to protect the troops from Gul'dan's Deathknights before the creation of the church's Paladin battle priests.

While Goldenglade knelt in consecration, her aura weathering the outflow of dak power like a rock beneath the tide, Gamon observed in wonder how the silvery power of death magic seemed to be consumed by the light, strengthening it, rather than being rebuffed as the Void and Fel were. Pushing aside that distraction for another time, he worked on collecting the arcane power that came with the flow, seemingly unaffected and unimpeded by the holy radiance. With the extra energy he carefully wove the order magic into spells of amplification and healing on Seras and nether shielding to form a cap over the disk. Between the pair of them they had managed to push the dark powers back and even surround the seal with consecrated ground…

But that had been eight hours ago, and they hadn't made any further progress.

The frightening thing though, was that the seal wasn't even active, simply resting in a neutral state. It had been difficult as the darkness sought to devour and the fel and death to destabilize everything he did, but arcane divination had managed to determine that the metal was meant to react to two ritual ingredients. Blood spilt in betrayal and tears of remorse. Such strange and specific requirements baffled him, but this was a different world and he was more worried about the effects of long hours of channeling on their priestess. While use of the arcane was taxing mentally, use of the light was taxing physically, despite its tendency to be used for healing spells. Paladins and their bolstered forces became useless after four hours of continuous battle. Priests never channeled continuously for more than an hour, preferring brief bursts of power similar to mages for their miracles. Adherents to the light often struggled simply to touch it for moments at a time. What was Goldenglade doing to herself holding open a line to the cosmic force of creation for 14 hours straight? Would she even survive? If she did, she'd redefine everything he knew about the light.

Grabbing her shoulder roughly he spoke softly into her ear. "Priestess, we must go."

"No..." she murmured, voice drunk and strained "c-can still..."

"Priestess," he repeated, voice firm, "we make no progress here. The consecrated ground has not grown since we encircled the seal. Unless you think you're about to succeed?" She didn't answer, but a sudden loss of containment on the far side of the seal was answer enough. Dark energies flowed out of the breach once more, but it seemed to take a great strain off Seras to no longer be holding it in. Even so, the girl didn't want to leave.

Despite his expenditure Gamon was flush with arcane power, so with his staff he quickly began scratching out a teleportation circle and took them back to the mansion. They landed with a _bang_ and Seras collapsed, eyes glowing a blazing white gold. Other elves rushed to their side and quickly moved Seras to a bed while others fetched Gamon a much needed glass of wine and summoned their leader, Starblade.

Meloren arrived shortly and looked down on the mage. "You're alive. It seems I didn't need to send out that rescue party after all." He looked off to the side and called to another elf. "Daro, could you make to intercept Firetree and her party? Their heroics are no longer required." Then he turned back to the exhausted mage, pulling him to his feet. "What happened friend? You were gone much longer than expected."

"Their font of power was much more than expected as well, M'lord. The priestess thought to contain and purify it, but we were severely understaffed for such an effort."

The Farstrider Lieutenant nodded pensively. "Do you think Stormbreaker's effort will fair better or worse?" he asked in his best command voice.

The Battlemage unconsciously stiffened. "I do not know, sir. Fel power, for all that is is chaos incarnate, does not reshape itself easily into other elements as arcane does. Much the opposite in fact. As is, the demonic energies of fel and void hold each other mostly in check, but attempt to transmute either… I am unsure that would be safe. I am pleased however to report that due to the interference between the void, spirit and fel magic seeping through the portal, none of the three have had the advantage needed to properly destabilize and transmute the arcane power on the other side. Should we find a safe means of dealing with the other three elements, our people shall have enough arcane power to sustain a population in the tens of thousands! And that's before we start drawing on what this planet itself has to offer."

A cheer went up around the pair. "That is good, Battle Mage Manathistle. That is very good. "

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Jonathan Levinson watched in rapt fascination as the ritual began. Streamers of violet arcane energy flowed out from Davion Starpetals hands, forming a web of glowing runes and ritual lines in three dimensions, all without a word or gesture from the dead mage. His part in the ritual was both pivotal, and remarkably boring, he thought, glancing back down at the enormous crystal floating between his hands, but Lynet had more or less insisted on it. For the importance of what they were about to do, the ghoulish enchantress wanted to take no chances.

After their planning session had concluded, the party had journeyed further into the city of An'Telas until they reached an enormous courtyard where the very air crackled with a mix of powerful magics. Within the clearing of dead trees, cracked earth and crumbled stone, a rusted crystal planetarium had creaked and inched itself along, each shaky movement threatening to topple the cracked crystal globes suspended on each of the tarnished golden arms. Jonathan had initially thought them bronze, for how could gold tarnish? Then he remembered about mercury corrosion, alloys of gold used to compensate for it's softness and references to magics that literally ate gold as fuel.

The planetarium had, when the town was alive, been a machine designed to tap into and regulate the power of the ley lines. Within the device the planets magical life blood was syphoned, filtered, purified and directed out to a community power grid where it fed the citizens their daily magical sustenance and powered their utilities and spells. In this manner lights were lit and dimmed, homes were warmed or cooled, orchards and fields were tended for water, disease and soil composition, and the very climate itself was altered to maintain a perpetual springtime. With the corruption and later destruction of the sunwell by the Lich Kel'thuzad, the elves magical network and the leylines they had interwoven themselves with were flooded with enough death magic to kill just about anything that had survived the scourge. Plants, animals, insects, bacteria, elves who were old, sick, injured or young… Worse, the environmental controls implemented by the devices kept things in stasis. Where the weather had previously been regulated by patterns or arcane and holy magic, they now maintained a stagnant cloud cover without wind and an aura of death that prevented anything from healing. Magically or naturally.

It was for this precise reason that Lynet and Starpetal had decided to dismantle the device and use it's remains to fuel their new ritual.

Jonathan stood at the center of the clearing, holding the central orb lightly between his two palms. This should have been impossible, as the rock was a solid gem almost as large as his torso, but magic will out. Standing around him in an equilateral triangle were the three… elves, more or less; each holding their own crystal from the device. Under the influence of their magics the same symbol Jonathan had first used to reforge Masophet's skull into a bomb had been laid in gold melted from the former leyline device. The purpose, Starpetal had explained, after lengthy debate with Ysolde, would be to use their undeath and the leyline device to draw in as much death magic as was not contained in the citizens themselves and funnel it into the shadowlands. Jonathan, as a living being who had gained significant connection to death recently through his possession by Lynet and subsequent use of banshee power, would form the catalyst to shunt the magic across the divide and between him and the memory of centuries within the primary ley crystal, equalize the balance of power across the county.

As an added safeguard Lynet, Jonathan and Ysolde had refashioned a silver star from the altar of An'Telas Cathedral of Light and the Mohra's Eye of a Thousand Fates into a diadem which now rested on the short humans brow. Between the two, well, three, life giving artifacts they hoped to keep Jonathan living for the duration of the ritual and beyond.

Unlike Jonathan's previous ritual which had happily and swiftly drained several square miles of all negatively charged spiritual essence in the space of a few minute, this ritual was designed to be channeled for hours, reach a _**much**_ __wider area and not call or bind any spirits into the casters. Like the machine they were cannibalizing, it worked by manipulating the ley lines. Like bloodletting in reverse, the ritual would spread out through the county's magical network and draw the necromantic power into the blood vessels of the planet, concentrating the poison into tangible rivers of power before drawing them back into the heart where the power would pool and be exchanged through the ley nexus beneath them.

If all went well, the rivers of elemental spirit would never even touch the four magic users.

A deep bass note broke Jonathan from his musing. His bone rattled with the power of it and all of his hair stood on end as the magic of the ritual settled into place. It had begun. The orb in his hands began to glow, first violet, then ethereal blue and finally taking on the strange void rimmed with white he had become familiar with over the last few days. As the white radiance grew to blinding proportions Jonathan's perspective shifted. Every line and rune of the ritual burned itself into his mind, and he became aware of himself and his three companions magic in a way he could only grasp by thinking about his old daredevil comics and the superheroes 360 degree echolocation 'sight'.

And then it got bigger.

Jonathan's thoughts followed along as the trickle of arcane power that still flowed through the local ley lines synergized with the spell they were working and the effect spread out across the networked lines of power. Directed by Ysolde and Davion, like called to like and the ordered nature of arcane began to act as a magnet would, calling on the staid inevitability and implacable entropy of death magic. There was an incredible amount of spiritual power bound up in the leyline network, concentrated within the streams as generally happened with every other type of power. Like iron filings following the flux lines, that power eagerly rushed in towards the center where the power almost immediately reached critical mass.

Jonathan watched in rapt fascination as beneath his feet earth turned the same blue-silver translucence he experienced in his wraith form and a rift tore open to _something_ or perhaps more accurately, _somewhere,_ beyond conventional reality. There were faces on the other side of the breach. Intelligences, curious, benevolent, malevolent and apathetic. Some of them tried to approach the point of convergence, but found themselves pushed back by the influx of power that, while slippery and intangible in reality, constituted a physical presence over there.

That was when things began to get complicated. Magic can neither be created nor destroyed, only altered from one element or another. Using it in spells or, in this case dumping it into the appropriate elemental plane, meant that the power had been moved from one place to another and there was now less power in the local leylines and more behind them. This imbalance sought naturally to equalize. Raw ley magic was an amalgam of all of the energies that permiated a location, so that backfilling had the initial benefit of helping to clear leylines far beyond the scope of the spell itself of build up necromancy, extending to the rest of Quel'thalas and northeastern Lordaeron, now known as the eastern plaguelands, but because the spell could only handle so much energy at a time and it was more than busy handling the glut of death magic within the leyline network, the spell wasn't completing its initial purpose of drawing the deathly magics out of the environment itself.

It wasn't happening quickly either, which was really the primary concern. While it was fair enough for the sunwell, corrupted by fel and void enhanced necromancy to convert enormous amounts of arcane power into death magic in a short period of time, tainting the land in a matter of an hour or so before Liadrin's forces rallied and destroyed it, it was entirely another for Jonathan and his band of… relative mortals, to do the same thing even when given seven hours to work undisturbed. Spellwork was physically and mentally taxing at the best of times and though the undeath of his partners and the Moh'Ra diadem he wore protected them from the usually physical ills, seven hours was the point where Jonathan simply blacked out and collapsed, utterly exhausted.

Their center gone, Lynet and her compatriots weren't far behind. They were however, left with the difficult task of collapsing the ritual. Their work was only half done. Not even that really. Starpetal estimated around 35% of the death energy from the Lordaeron subcontinent had drained through their portal to the shadowlands, more than four times what was in the An'telas countryside to begin with, but because of backfilling from the ley energy of the surrounding countryside, the potency of the death magic in the area had only fallen by 25%, and that mostly due to the arcane power that had thickened as it was used to pull more power from further away faster. A marginal success, but one that could be reversed easily if they didn't cut off the connection to the elemental plane of death now that their ritual was beginning to unravel.

Providence came in the form of a blue dragon. Curious creatures, sensitive to all forms of magic, it should have come as little surprise that their actions had attracted the attention of a nearby leviathan. It landed and, with a snort of contempt, sealed the breach. The Loa within screamed a wailed as they were cut off from the mortal world, though only one quiet observer noticed. The danger more or less over, the dragon tore the ritual out of the ground and rotated it so that ley crystals, now cracked, gold lines, pitted scored and corroded, and streams of arcane circuitry could be exposed for it to study.

After several long minutes the power of the ritual suddenly dispersed and the dragon turned to the three velvety black ghosts. "Entertain me," the leviathan rumbled in a voice like cracking ice "for this seems like the start of a bad joke. What are three of Helya's Valkyr and a human child doing, playing with reckless magic in the middle of a ley hollow?"


	6. Cross genesis

"Entertain me," the leviathan rumbled in a voice like cracking ice "for this seems like the start of a bad joke. What are three of "Helya's Valkyr and a human child doing, playing with reckless magic in the middle of a ley hollow?"

Lynet and Davion glanced at each other, confused and wary of the blue drake. Not many knew the difference between the flights as all three known flights tended to be reclusive in the extreme. Occasionally some hero would need to save some town or kingdom or other from a black dragon, and when the Horde came to Quel'thalas they had ridden dragons of the red flight to devastating effect, but only Dalaran and the scourge had dealt with the blues. Dalaran's high council refused to talk about what went on during any event where a blue dragon appeared flying between the cities spires, but there was typically a large amount of property damage and remarkably few deaths. The scourge, as far as the two undead knew, mostly defended themselves from outraged drakes as they worked to raise the bones of said dragons fallen family into service by brute force application of recycled souls.

Darkwhisper alone among them knew, at least, that blue dragons meant major events of magic, as all of them were sorcerers of some description.

" _ **Jonathan,**_ " Ysolde told the dragon in, attempting an offhand tone which came off about as casual as her newly defined and blackened ethereal body, " _ **decided the place was filthy and could do with smelling less like a mausoleum. The three of us were so grateful to him for being free of that bastard Ner'zhul that we figured, why the hell not, and helped him set it up. Who's Helya? I thought I knew the names of all Lich King's most wanted.**_ "

"AH! You are forsaken. How foolish of me." The blue lifted a paw to scratch its chin and looked down at the human mage the spirits were shielding. "Clever little spell you cooked up. Preying upon the nature of the elemental planes to equalize the death magic out across the entire planet rather than trying to cleanse it directly. Very clever. Don't clean up what you can put in balance. Did your friend engineer the ritual himself, or was it a collaborative effort?"

At this Lynet stepped forward. " _ **Did you say the Warlock Levinson was human? I would swear there were none so small.**_ "

" _ **Kindly don't contradict the gigantic magically adept murder-beast**_ " Starpetal cut in, quiet but urgent, his hand on Windrider's shoulder. " _ **It just closed a nexus powered death rift with a snort, it probably won't matter to it that were already dead…**_ "

" _ **He's talking rather than attacking, that's enough for now. It was a collaborative effort, dragon. Jonathan brought with him an evolved form of evocation, I showed them how to connect it to the Ley Lines, Starpetal wrote the planar portal runes and Darkwisper helped us keep the spell from forming a magical entity by accident. Not that I don't appreciate my continued existence, but why are you here and talking? 700 years and I've never heard tell of a dragon talk who wasn't Deathwing.**_ "

The dragon hissed at the name, but remained calm. "My Lord Malygos detected a great magical disturbance to the south in the kingdom of alterac. I was dispatched to investigate. Your efforts here piqued my interest. Such a fascinating bit of magic you four have created. Reckless, but clever and well intentioned. I shall remember it when I return to my lord." The great beast turned its head around and nibbled at it's back before turning around and spitting an amulet to the ground between them. "Next time, remember to have a plan for the completion of your efforts. Should you ever find yourselves in need of a dragon or a powerful sorcerer, call on me and I shall return the favor, unique spell for unique spell."

The group of spirits were… utterly nonplussed. What was going on here? As the dragon turned around, crouched and spread its wings, only Ysolde had regained the presence of mind to ask " _ **What**_ _ **IS**_ _ **your name?**_ "

"I am Kalecgos!" It thundered as it took off into the sky, winging south.

As the leviathan vanished into the early morning horizon Davion spluttered. " _ **What in the Light's name just happened here?**_ "

" _We made -cough-_ " came a wheezy exhausted voice from behind them " _a deal with a d-dragon._ " Jonathan started wheezing again and it took the three of them several seconds to realize that the recently awakened human was laughing, even as he lay there helpless from exhaustion and fainting. The ruddy red glow from the crown on his forehead answered the question of how he was up again, but still left them confused as to the significance of his words.

" _ **A deal with a dragon...**_ " Ysolde muttered, looking at the sky. " _ **Blues are sorcerers who live in northrend…**_ " She began pacing. " _ **Unique spell for unique spell… I think I've got it!**_ "

" _ **Do tell…**_ " Lynet drawled, turning to walk to wards where they'd left their bodies. The enchantress grit her ethereal teeth further as Ysolde, seeing her movements rushed past her to dive into Dar'khan's body protectively.

As Dar'khan stood up, Ysolde continued, excitedly. "The blue dragons of Northrend are… _virtually_ immortal sorcerers. Sorcerers love learning new things. Unfortunately they're few in number because of their wars with both the black dragons and recently the Scourge as well. The region of Northrend Kel'thuzad took me and my fellow apprentices too was absolutely covered in half buried corpses and skeletons of blue and black dragons. Also, The Song of Agwynn, an account of Dalaran's most famous and successful Guardian, hints at further wars between blue dragons and demons of the Burning Legion ending in her defeat of the Avatar of Sargeras. I can tell you from experience that mages will pay out vast sums of gold or potent favors for powerful spells that nobody else knows. If the blue dragons are the same, and I'm just guessing here, then between that and their war with the scourge, we've just given him the big double whammy!"

"Well, that too..." Jonathan groaned from the ground. He was sounding stronger, but still exhausted.

Starpetal and Windrider put on their bodies as well and, after a moment worrying they might be consumed by the powerful necrotic magic, continued the conversation.

"Whatever his favor means," Starpetal replied, "It's doubtful the dragon is the only one to have noticed. If you haven't realized yet, all of the ghosts and ghouls that once resided in this city have fled and now form a perimeter around us. Now that the ritual is ended, so too might their fear of us. Further, both the surviving enclave of elves you told us about and the scourge have undoubtedly noticed what we've done and will be sending search parties. Our people should be alot more active now that the balance of ley energy across Quel'thalas has changed from 95% death, 3% arcane and 2% assorted elements to 70% death 25% arcane and 5% assorted elements."

"Indeed," Lynet replied with a nod. Picking up one of the broken pieces of golden ritual circle from the ground and fashioning it into a blade with a few words and a sizzle of magic the ascended banshee turned to Ysolde and grinned savagely. "Lets get living again. But first, we're going to need that head."

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Dawn hummed happily as she got out of the car, nodding to the elves who came to greet her. One of them took the keys and drove the car off towards the garage as she passed through the front doors of the mansion. Today was an interesting day. Buffy had had some sort of breakdown this morning and was now raiding the mayor's office; Spike was all warm had human now, but still somehow strong and tough as a demon, and Giles had received some sort of phone call that was having him run around like a headless chicken. Everybody was safe and happy and too busy to confine her like they since Glory had really become a nuisance.

Today was also special for another reason. The elves had promised to start teaching her _magic._

Dawn had already performed one spell, which, by all indications had worked. It was a very high level spell, Doc had said, and very difficult to pull off. But she had done it without effort. Deliath Stormbreaker said that was an indication of extreme potential.

Oh, she knew they just wanted to use her as a means of getting home, but to learn magic from elves! She didn't need to have memorized Lord of the Rings or celtic folklore to know that was special. Hitting the kitchens and asking a few questions, she headed for the basement with a lunch platter in one arm and a freshly sliced ham and cheddar sandwich in the other.

The basement was a cavernous space which actually adjoined the garage. When she had first arrived it had been full of fancy cars, both new and vintage, alongside a large pile of various sized crates and a small work area with general mechanic's tools. Dawn had expected it to be much the same, though perhaps with the workshop being converted into a magic nook like Willow's space at the magic box. Instead, she walked in just in time to see moms car being shrunk atop a glowy magic circle. Dawn stood there open mouthed as the SUV finished shrinking down to the size of a remote control model car and was picked up by two elves and moved over to the far wall. On the wall she could see the rest of the cars, arranged neatly on stone shelves that grew out of the newly fused stone wall.

"Ah, Greetings, Lady Key. It's good to have you here. Quite an ingenious idea isn't it? Who would have thought humans would come up with the idea of shrinking their carriages for ease of storage and maintenance?" Dawn turned around to see two robed elves walking over to her. The one who was speaking… Manathistle maybe? Oh, and he was still talking. "Of course we couldn't find the mechanism that did it, so we had to engineer our own. Spacial distortions are old hat, but it was fairly tricky to bond the spell to the object so it could be moved while still affected by the field."

Dawn closed her mouth and the male elf clapped his hands. "So! Shall we get to work?"

The teenaged brunette nodded, dazed, and looked over at the rest of the basement. The smooth, almost glassy, cement floor was covered in multiple magical circles, some drawn in chalk, others with powders and a few didn't even seem to be drawn, hanging there in three dimensions of neon purple light. "What are all of these?" She asked, struggling to hold her wonder. Above each of the circles brilliantly burning gems hovered or flew and over some of them aroras of rainbow colored light flowed in various patterns.

The tall male elf looked around. "Experiments mostly. We're having a bit of trouble with the whole enchanting bit. As I explained before, we're war mages, not crafters. Thankfully, arcane energy will easily convert into any color of magic quite easily and the ritual thaumaturgy to do so are well known. SO… we're using those diagrams and our elemental conversion tables as a base to work out the rest."

Dawn nodded hesitantly. "What about the other plan though? The, ah, Nexus thingy?"

Her escort nodded, leading her slowly through the active rituals to where Stormbreaker was working. "Nexus crystals and a Prismatic core. That is the end goal of course. With a Nexus Crystal we could easily concentrate and control the leylines and local background magic, where it is, where it's going the patterns and nodes it flows through; and with a network of prismatic cores, any element or mix of elements that flow into it will come out the other side a different random element, pure as diamonds."

Looking around, he shrugged. "As is, we're currently stuck with diluting arcane into the basic five elements and working out the more general conversions."

Dawn looked at one of the circles with interest. It was pulling in blue-silver energy that felt like the stuff Spike had used to heal Drusilla and funneling it into brilliant white gold gem. Shimmering golden light that made her cry and filled Dawn with a sense of peace radiated out the top in waves. "So there are six elements? From everything WIllow's told me, there's only earth magic and dark magic, both of which can be expressed in an infinite number of ways."

Her companion winced, as if the sentence had been physically painful for him to hear. "No. There are indeed far more than two. What your friend knows as dark magic is in fact an amalgam of three different elements. Void, Chaos and Spirit. Some people split elemental spirit into three separate elements of Life, Death and Spirit and there's a great deal of debate on whether or not they are right or wrong to do so, but for the sake of this town and your friends dark magic, when we speak of spirit we will exclusively be speaking of the necromantic side of the scale."

Dawn looked away from the golden light, confusion written on her face. "By why wouldn't life and death be counted as different elements, if there really was a magical basis for either of them?"

"An astute question," her apparent teacher observed. "Life and death are, as far as our arcanists have been able to decipher over 15,000 years of study, polarizations of the same element, that of spirit. When life is born, death magic is used as to fuel catalyze vitality. When things die, the life magic burns out like ash and turns dark, giving form to a ghost. In the Shadowlands where spirits dwell the form of ghosts eventually break down to become neutral spiritual energy and life radiates away spiritual energy as it is used to which collects and neutralizes as well. From life comes death, and from death, life. This had caused many to argue them being the same element, spirit."

Dawn made an 'oh' face. "Very zen," she replied. "So, what are the other elements?"

Manathistle looked confused, but continued on, leading her away from the elemental Light. "The other elements, the ones I suspect are your friends earth magic, are the four primal elements, Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Life, as well as Order and Creation. The one you were just staring at so rapturously was the last one. The light of creation itself." Dawns eyes bugged out at that, but Manathistle didn't seem to notice.

"Hello again, Lady Dawn." The Sorceress Stormbreaker spoke, looking up distractedly as they approached. "Gamon, look here," she said, pointing to a diagram where she was levitating a series of six gems in a maze of neon purple threads. "It's as I theorized earlier, under the influence of the Light, Fel can be induced to break down sufficiently to convert into the fire element without contamination. It's a little complicated, I know, bit it should solve your problem from last night where you were inundated with dark energy from the hellmouth."

The three of them examined the 3D model. Dawn thought it looked a lot like a jet engine resting atop a tire. Above three sets of rising magical circles, formed of runes in an abbreviated cone, sat what looked to be a funnel of quivering purple light. On one side of the funnel where Dawn thought the cap and fan might go, sickly green energy seemed to be separating from the air and being pulled into the diagram. It felt… wrong. Twisted. Like that time in the library when the sisterhood of Jhe were throwing themselves into the rift and the tentacles were trying to strangle Buffy and rape Willow. Dawn shivered and looked away from it. Further into the diagram were two brilliantly burning gems of gold white power. They spun like fan blades, orbiting around the green energy. They seemed to be weakening it, causing the crackling wavering emerald to dim and calm before it met the third crystal. This one was a bright red-orange and burned like an old coal when you blew on it. The emerald power flowed over it like a stream over a boulder. On the other side of the red crystal the green energy went through another transformation becoming a brilliant green white fire that rushed down the rest of the short length of purple wires like a blow torch or jet engine. Before it reached the second ember it passed between another set of spinning golden gems where the energy seemed to lose its greenish hue. After passing over the final gem the now vibrating white energy became a jet of orange plasma that somehow, _somehow_ dissipated from the room without turning the place into an oven.

As Dawn watched the process for several minutes the grinning elves slowly became somber. The six gems in the design were melting away as the spell continued and after a captivating quarter hour all that was passing through the arcane matrix was green energy which quickly caused the entire thing to destabilize and flicker out into nothing.

"Damn," Stormbreaker swore, stomping her feet. "I was so sure I had it this time!"

'Gamon' Nodded. "It was impressive work, I'll admit that. If only we had essences to work with instead of mana gems, I think you might have had something. As is, I think we might be able to use this as a stopgap."

Dawn bit her lip and bounced a bit, looking confused. "What's the difference though? Mana gems, spells, magical essence? I thought it was all just mana density or something?"

Manathistle shook his head. "The difference is subtle I suppose, but fundamental all the same. Spells are energy shaped towards a purpose. Mana is energy stored in the body, it attunes to the person, changing somewhat, but mostly the difference just makes it easier to use. Mana gems are energy condensed to the point it behaves like physical matter, but it's still just energy. Magical essences are pretty much the opposite of mana gems, being physical matter that has become attuned to magic on a fundamental level. Like Iron filings to a magnet it constantly draws in mana of the same type creating a sort of natural power source. A mages resting mana pool, resting regeneration rate and elemental affinities are all a result of magical essence building up in the body."

Stormbreaker nodded. "I thought I could perhaps make ad hoc essences by forming my mana gems around a seed material, small diamonds from some jewelry Glorificus insisted on collecting. But it didn't work. "

"So, ah, what just happened?" Dawn asked, confused.

The pair of elves looked at her as if just noticing she was there. They looked at each other and chuckled to themselves. "Do you want to take over her lessons?" Manathistle asked. "Or would you prefer to continue working? You were the one who suggested we teach her instead of… er..." he glanced at the human girl and back at his partner before shrugging.

Stormbreaker bit her lip, looking between Dawn and her work. "You were doing a good job at playing instructor on the way over, weren't you? I suppose I could lecture during Lunch, but unless you think we could syphon enough to form a portal without breaking… things… I think my research might be a bit more important."

The two of them looked at each other and continued with a conversation Dawn was sure was made entirely of facial expressions before both of them shrugged and took the platter from her. They moved over to the mechanics area and sat down, Gamon in a squishy office chair, Deliath on a large beanbag and Dawn on a big red toolbox. Dawn would have preferred the beanbag, but she was a guest at the moment.

After several minutes where the only sounds were eating, Gamon cleared his throat and spoke between bites. "Alright, basic lessons. Magical cosmology and why you should never under any circumstances play with Fel energy."

"Like what you were doing back there?" She asked, impishly.

The elf woman shook her head. "That's totally different. Instead of trying to use chaos magic, we're trying to get rid of it. More importantly, with rituals like that, we never touch it ourselves."

"As I was saying." Gamon interrupted with a glower. "In the beginning of the universe, all was void. No light, no matter, not even a space to form a vacuum with. Into this null zone, this new dimension poured the Light of Creation. With it came the five basic dimensions, space, time and magic, and with the expanding space that is the reality of a new dimension there was born the void. Which came first is a heated circular debate which has had scholars arguing for millennia and getting nowhere so I won't bore you with philosophizing on which came first. Just understand that at the creation of the universe there was the Light of Creation and the Entropic Void."

Dawn nodded to that. "We've got a couple of stories like that here too. Most religions start out like that, and even science says more or less the same thing, though they call it the big bang theory."

Manathistle nodded, accepting simply that there were similar philosophies on this world and continued. "As reality expanded and the Light of creation infused reality with power, the void acted to draw that power into itself and erase it, as things had been before the light. This conflict between the two primordial elements gave birth to the next two. Arcane and Fel. Where the void and light worked in balance and mixed they became order," Gamon explained, violet light forming geometric patterns around his fist. "Where they clashed and fought each other, the discordant residue became chaos." The patterns formed an ordered web above which green energy coalesced from the air briefly to attack the purple power before they both disbursed. "This realm of battling energies became known as the twisting nether. There, light void and chaos remained, eternally shifting and attacking each other. The three aetheric elements of creation maintain a curious balance that exists on a cosmic scale. Light fuels and maintains the universe from the immaterium. Void draws it towards its inevitable demise. Chaos is born betwixt the two and attacks both, weakening them and expending itself, preventing any sort of resolution."

"Order however, behaved differently. Coalescing into a central point, it became something else entirely. A sub-dimension both intrinsically connected to, and separate from the immaterium. This arcane power, the ordered nature of both creation and entropy, became the prime material plane, known as the great dark." He paused to think. "I believe your earth humans call it outer space." He shrugged and moved on.

"Fueled by its origin, the light of creation, Order began to form more things. Physical laws, solid matter and the like. Chaos, driving by its nature to attack order, tried to reach through the dimensional walls and attack order, the result being fire. As it could not quite reach on its own, these burning spots of power came once more under the sway of order and became the sun and stars. Void tried as well and order learned from it to created cold. It is from this we have the four primal elements. Air and Earth. Fire and Ice. Elements both magical and material. Magic or course, never stays still and all of these elements mixed and formed complex patterns under the direction of arcane magic and the physical laws it had created. From that mixture of the five natural elements came spirit. Spirit transcended the materium with its power and potential but quickly found itself preyed upon by Light, Void and Chaos. Instead of forming a bridge between the Materium and the Immaterium it found itself consumed and tainted, forming the energies of Life and Death."

Gamon pursed his lips and looked at his students hand as it waved back and forth in the air. "Yes?"

"Is all of that true?" she asked. "I mean, are you certain of it? Because if it is, that would like, revolutionize both magical theory and religion here on earth. Everything would have to be reexamined. Science, Magic, Religion. Everyone'd go nuts!"

The elves sighed. Humans.

"As near as we can tell, yes." Stormbreaker replied. "Back before the fall of Eldra'Thalas and the old empire arcanists had been studying cosmic magic for nearly 700 years and this theory fits everything we know about magical transmutation, the sheer quantities of each element and the age of the elemental gods. Unfortunately even they aren't all too sure how everything happened or when, so its a pretty strong theory, but only that."

Gamon nodded. "Indeed. Here though, we get to the point where Fel Magic is bad. Fel, by its simple nature, opposes arcane magic. Arcane is the basis for all physical laws and thus mortal reality, not to mention the complex systems that make up reality. Since fel's power is always seeking to alter systems and break physical laws it's mere presence weakens reality. On top of that, any and all magic that interacts with a brain will bring on certain patterns of thought, leading many cultures to view magic as corrupting; though there is some debate in the magical community on whether that's chicken or egg, as you need to get into certain thought patterns in order to draw upon such powers to begin with. Whether its reinforcement through repetition or magical corruption, the effect is the same. Fire users become more passionate, water users more tranquil, earth users more stubborn, arcane users more orderly and precise, and Fel magic users simply become insane. Mortals and insanity typically leads to cruelty and destruction, fel is something no stable person should ever touch. Worse, the unstable ones."

"So…" Dawn temporized "Why DO people use fel magic, if it's so dangerous?"

"Because it's the low hanging fruit." Came a voice from the doorway. The three of them turned around and the two mages came up in a salute. Dawn pushed off the toolbox awkwardly and bowed slightly to the armored red-haired elf man. "Arcane energy is attractive to its enemy, the Fel, like iron filings to a loadstone. Less so with the five primal elements, but even still because of their origin. If one uses magic, fel power is just beyond the veil and easily allows itself to be used where the other ten or twelve elements require dedicated effort from their users. Is that about right, Battlemage?"

Gamon nodded stiffly. "Precisely Lieutenant Starblade. There is also the matter of the physical reaction it causes. Euphoria, lightheadedness, a sense of unlimited power. And if you survive it long enough, the promise of immortality in the immaterium as a demon soul."

The three elves clasped arms briefly before letting go and relaxing. "I Think you've given enough lecture for the moment." Starblade commanded. "Set her up with some exercises and see what she can do. And in the meantime, do you think you could put some spells on my armor? It got this at a human shop. They called it Cosplay. It's nice to wear armor again, but I fear the quality is somewhat lacking."

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

"We're going to need that head."

Ysolde looked pained. "Must you?"

" _Yes,_ " both elven magisters replied in unison.

Jonathan watched from the ground, morbidly amused, as Ysolde leaned back out of Dar'khan's body and held his head up to be chopped off. Both he and the ghost winced as it fell to the ground with a wet crack and was picked up by Lynet's red haired form. The enchantress grinned evilly at the face before reforming several stones into a box and placing it inside.

" _ **You know, this is remarkably uncomfortable.**_ " Ysolde commented. " _ **My ectoplasm doesn't know whether to maintain my head or sink into my neck.**_ "

Jonathan, took pity on her and stumbled over to his backpack, and tossed her a dart. Selecting another dart from the bag he stabbed himself in the leg and flicked the plunger. Thick green blood shot into his veins to mix with his and relief flooded him. A pallor left his skin and face along with stiffness from all over his body. There was a twisting in his gut and a euphoric headache as magic and vitality seemed to flood… oh crap.

Jonathan opened his eyes and tried to shift into ghost form, but couldn't. The effort instead flooded his limbs with a strength that made him feel almost as light and lit his hands with a soft jade glow. Reaching out to the power of the area he drew in the deathly energy and tried again. It was… harder than it should have been, but Jonathan felt his body become intangible and slip into the border of the spirit realm once more.

"Jonathan?" He looked up to see Lynet staring down at him, a needle poised above her arm. "What is wrong with your ghost form?"

Starpetal, who was standing on Jonathan's other side, stood up from where he was grimacing at the change, withdrew the dart from his own arm and flexed his magic, jade lightning sparking off his fingers. "I do believe Mr Levinson's formula had purified the necromantic energy that was keeping us alive," he said, examining the light and sensation of the blue green energy. "It's now neutral spirit element. Odd. I would have imagined the polarity would have reversed to form nature element, but…" he shrugged and bent down to jump before springing nearly 50 feet up.

Lynet rolled her eyes as her old friend crashed to the ground with a cry, failing to land gracefully. Lowering the dart she held in her own hand she went over to Starpetal and mended his bones, before going over to Ysolde. "How are you feeling?"

Ysolde moved into a series of stretches. "It feels… weird. I can't just slide out of the body anymore and having living male equipment rather than dead or female is more different that I'd assumed." His brow furrowed and arcane power began to weave diagrams around his hands. More concentration and a jade aura began to radiate from his body. "My magic is fine, though none of my ghostly powers are responding. I'll have to evoke something from the ley lines if we want to fly out of here."

Lynet nodded. "It would be safer and more efficient to set up a portal," the remaining undead woman replied. "Here, let me rework your face. Jonathan had the right idea, it's best that you not be identified as Drathir when we get to Silvermoon." Ysolde looked hesitant for a moment before nodding and Lynet went to work. Dar'khan's nose shortened a few millimeters and turned up slightly, his jaw fused and removed the cleft chin and became rounder, less square. There was a grinding noise as cheekbones shifted slightly and changed the definition of his face, making it look more masculine, almost human rather than elvish. The last touch was to shorten much of Dar'khan's long silky brown hair.

"I'd give you a large beard, but we still want you to appear as an elf rather than a half blood." Lynet said, stepping back and injecting herself. She doubled up briefly as the blood surged through her body, reviving it, restarting bodily function and reigniting long dead nerves in a hail of sensation. It felt like getting hit with a flaming boulder, her whole body over, but was gone almost as quickly as it had begun leaving the new auburn redhead reeling. It was her soul being twisted that most disturbed Lynet however. She could feel it being bound to the body she had stolen from the crypt and rituals long forgotten being broken as if to remove a weight from her spirit. Rage soothed and the ever-present duality of pain and numbness that defined her existence as a banshee vanished to a feeling of relief. Fear, joy, uncertainty and exhaustion bubbled together as her renewed lungs reminded her of life and he gasped for breath, taking in the stagnant air of the dead courtyard.

"You good?" Lynet looked up to find Jonathan's hand on her shoulder. Surging forward, she grabbed him up in a hug, lifting the small boy up off his feet.

"I'm not going to apologize for anything I did," She whispered in his ear "much of it was necessary. But I thank you with all my heart for freeing me and not trying harder to get rid of me. You really could have managed it a few times." With that she put him down, dazed. She walked over to the box containing Dar'khan's severed head and picked it up, before going to talk quietly with Starpetal.

Starpetal for his part was working with Ysolde to craft a portal to Silvermoon. The beacons, as far as either of them could tell, were gone, so they were working from the Arcanist's memory alone. After nearly five minutes of casting, half the time he'd last seen it done Jonathan noticed, a hole opened in the air with a ripping sound. Ysolde looked at the portal and blinked. Then he grabbed the sides of the hole and leaned through, looking around.

"Arcanist, where the hell did you send us? The floor is 20 feet down and tilted."

The new half-elf pulled Darkwhisper out of the portal and looked through himself before swearing and altering several of the runes. The view on the other side of the portal moved downwards and settled near the floor. "This is… was, Falthrien Academy. I taught here before the scourge. It was a floating school that specialized in postgraduate research. It has… had a very elite patronage, King Anasterian, several members of the convocation, including your current body. The Prince Kael'thas liked to play student here from time to time when things became slow in Dalaran or one of his human friends died. It was quite the scandal when he gave Princess Jaina a tour." He sighed. "Then Arthas brought the scourge through silvermoon and everything changed. I was killed by a gargoyle on the roof while in the middle of a spell to melt the ice bridge carrying the scourge to Quel'Danil."

"A rather peaceful death, all things considered." Lynet commented, pushing past the men bracketing the passage north. Jonathan followed quickly as did Ysolde and finally Davion, who closed the portal behind them.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Back in the clearing they had just vacated, another portal opened up, this one sparking and burning with energies both deathly and void. Through it stepped first one Lich, then another and another and another. The undead spellcasting elite examined their landing and gargled in furious gutterspeak. The event was over, they prey gone. None were eager to report failure to their liege, but apparent lack of witnesses did mean opportunity. So long as the portal remained open and undetected a sizable force could be moved through to retake the ghostlands.

So many souls, so little time…

Wings of black marble created a storm of dust as the Epoch Hunter landed in the ruins of An'Daroth. A great event had taken place here, one that shook the very foundation of the time. So great were the paradoxes created by the disturbance it had taken the remaining dragons nearly two weeks to recover their strength and find out that their master was no more. He had been rewritten by the event and it was hoped that by seeking the source they could find out how to succeed entirely in their goals.

It didn't take long to find clues, despite having finished its task weeks in the past, the disturbance had left a strong mark in the fabric of reality. A strange and powerful energy that spoke of equal parts chaos and order, though how that could be the great wyrm had no idea, marked a spot within the ruin of a dwelling at the edge of the city. Powerful wings beat the air once more as the fallen guardian of time made its way there.

The building, Hunter found, was too small to contain a fully grown drake and so took a mortal form. Marbled scales became skin of slate grey and silky white hair. Trim muscle enhanced feminine curves which themselves were swiftly covered by armor of bronze scale, leather and bone. It would have been ironic to many that the armor materials were draconic in origin, but such artifacts were not actually uncommon. Pieces of one's body held power. Power which in the wrong hands could be stolen or misused, as many a drake had learnt at cost over the millennia. It was thus that shed scales, skin and horns were gathered into armor and weapons by individual dragons forming powerful tools that easily accepted and grew in potency from the dragon's power.

So cladd, the Epoch Hunter made her way into the building. Viewing time as a nonlinear event was one of the most basic skills of the bronze flight and their corrupted siblings, and so it did not take much time or effort for ghosts of the past to begin playing themselves across the room. A young human flew into the room backwards and became solid, expelled a ghost and began walking around. Backwards and forwards, the Hunter followed the ghost of the past as it retraced its steps up into the second floor before disappearing entirely.

She frowned at that. Where had the human child gone? Her brow furrowed and the shadows of time moved forward once more, slowly this time. Suddenly there was a flash of green light and the boy was back. Pausing the visions of time once more, she rewound the echo, slower still.

There!

Skin turned teal by the jade glow of her quarries arrival The Epoch Hunter stared intently at the source of her quest. Tightly wound fire of jade formed a pit of fractal geometry. A portal of enormous distance. But was that distance in space, time or dimensional reality? She did not know, and frankly, did not care. Something had come through it that had unmade much of her flight. Interfering with its discharge was out of the question, this needed to happen, but seeking aid from the other side of the divide? That held possibility. If one traveler could affect so much change, retrieving another could do more.

Memorizing the particulars of the energy and position of the breach, the Epoch Hunter let go of the vision of time and stuck her hands forward. Arcane power flared as the impossible occurred and she stuck her hands into a vortex long since closed. Hands became claws as the transformed dragon slowly tore the breach wider and wider, her mere hands forging a path across reality. The feat would have been impossible for the lesser races. Difficult in the extreme even for the other dragonflights save perhaps the aspects which ruled each. But the Infinite dragons were masters of alternate realities. They roamed the timeways like few bronze themselves were capable of, seeking power, clarity and a means of escape.

With a last effort she pulled the portal open far enough to launch her slim elven body through and fell gracefully through the air on the other side. As she landed on the corrugated aluminum roof of a longhouse on the other side, the Epoch Hunter looked up at her closing portal and smiled. She had made it. She would remember. And when she had found the perfect tool… she would return once more.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The trio of risen elves and Jonathan spend the rest of the day sleeping in the Academy. They awoke briefly to watch the sunset and eat. Jonathan provided the meal, with a blood drawing and the words 'Sæhrimnir,

the best of meats, accept this blood. Bless this warband with a feast worthy of our efforts.' Reality trembled and protested, but food soon appeared. A large ham haunch, freshly cooked and glistening juicily, a pitcher of golden liquid and four stone bowls appeared.

As the four served themselves Ysolde game him an odd look. "Why use an invocation rather than a basic conjuration for food?"

Jonathan shrugged. "Because it's good stuff." he replied, taking a bite and closing his eyes at the perfectly tender and only slightly salty pork flavor. "Sæhrimnir is the boar of Odin, and eternally serves the evening feast halls of Valhalla. You can summon it any time, but the spell judges you and your recent efforts, so I usually keep it limited to things like after I complete a difficult spell or successful summoning. I usually get a small cut of the most awesome steak ever and a shot glass of mead. I guess it liked the stuff we've been getting up to recently."

The three elves looked thoughtful at that. "So… are you a priest or a warlock?" Lynet asked at the same time Davion wondered "DO you know the basic conjuration for food?"

The two looked at each other, wondering whose concern came first. "I guess I'm sort of both really. A Lot of magic where I'm from… most of it really, comes from others. A dozen different religions call it some variation of the word Midgard, meaning middle realm. Demons, gods, aliens, eldritch abominations, monsters, all of them stop through Earth at one point or another and they seem to really like my home town of Sunnydale for some reason. Probably the Hellmouth rift the mayor built the town over. In regards to food conjurations… I know five or six, but no, none that work just because of my own power and not some supernatural being."

There was silence for more than a minute as Jonathan continued to eat and the elves just looked at each other stumped. "Where in the void are you _from?_ " Windrider asked.

"Another world" he replied simply.

"Like Draenor?" Ysolde asked, shifting his hips uncomfortably, a pained look on his face. Ah the joys of male adjustment.

Jonathan looked interested. "Is that another planet?"

Davion Starpetal scowled. "It's the orc's world" he replied fury and disgust dripping from his tone "a hell world the barbarians created themselves before coming here to ravage our world. We drove them back there and sealed the gateway behind them. Twice."

Jonathan paused, a piece of Sæhrimnir hanging out of his closed mouth. He sucked on the sweet pork while internally geeking out. This world was shaping out to be pretty awesome (if dangerous), like Neverwinter, Tamriel or Middle Earth it had prissy elves, hardy dwarves, evil undead and rampaging barbarian orcs. He wondered briefly if they were green or grey skinned. Hopefully they didn't end up having an evil giant insect swarm to swing this more into the warhammer franchise than was strictly safe.

"So..." Lynet temporized "why didn't you tell us?"

Jonathan chuckled self consciously. "Well, at first I didn't want to seem uninformed. Scary new world, scary new companions, it was all rather unsettling. Anything to make my position seem stronger. After that… it just seemed kinda funny" he replied. _And I've read a few stories where people get powerful self building reputations that allow them to do more than they themselves could accomplish_ , the human thought privately. "And really, none of you ever asked me before, you all just assumed."

Ysolde grinned, Davion shook his head, ears pink, and Lynet nodded gravely. "I shall endeavor to do so then. It is the least I owe you" the lone remaining girl in their party replied.

While the rest of the group went back to sleep, deciding that it was better to head for the city at first light rather than in the middle of the night, Davion Starpetal stayed up with Jonathan, insisting on teaching him how to conjure food. As Jonathan went through the steps, Starpetal, in teacher mode, calmly corrected him on everything from how he drew arcane energy out of the ley-lines beneath the academy to specifically hot to pronounce words in arcane. To jonathan, it was mostly archaic scandinavian… with a texas accent. Everything was slurred and said slurring was apparently very specific and very important to the practice of the magic taught by the elves.

Although, while the words were nordic, the runes… were not. A Lot of it appeared to be a cross between the common fantasy fair and misused asian pictographs. When Jonathan asked about it Starpetal replied that many of the basic magic runes were based on the patterns magic made when the ley lines were were dominated by different elements, or mixes of elements. Others had been discovered by observing the residue of raw magic spells and elemental essences. New runes and ritual elements were regularly discovered by examining the residue of finished spells and that was the primary means by which magical knowledge grew.

After two hours of instruction Jonathan had succeeded in creating a small feast of breads, pies, meat cuts both cooked and uncooked and enough alcohol to drown a lush.

"One last bit of warning," Manapetal said after he decided Jonathan was sufficiently accomplished in the spell to leave the small human alone. "Conjured foods gather material from the surrounding area to make up their mass and you can survive on it, but anything that isn't nearby for the spell to gather will be filled in with condensed mana. I like to think it gives the food a bit of zest and crunch, but eating or drinking it long term can be downright unhealthy. Especially if you create it in a wasteland like this place, it will be almost pure mana. Good for renewing oneself after heavy spellcasting, but bad for a nutritional substitute. Also, the taste is based on your understanding of flavors, so it'll always be a shadow of properly prepared meal and with repetition can become quite bland."

Jonathan nodded and the pair of them ate some of the food before joining the others in sleep.

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

The Epoch Hunter crouched on the roof of the local government building observing the timeline of the local champions. Many of them were… disturbingly lackluster. Public leaders were merely servants of more distant authorities in most cases, the few gems in this edifice had been doomed to die in two years until recently, three years before they could have begun to make a major difference. Now, because of the divergence their influence would build, but slowly. Much too slowly. They were not the catalyst she was hunting.

There was one however. A small yellow girl. One 'Buffy Summers'. Before the divergence had entered the Hunters world and rent time asunder, this one had been destined to cause a series of major divergences, one every year for 9 years. Now her destiny seemed to be that of a guard captain. On the surface a great shame, and one she may be interested in lifting to return to her own world with, but the next catalyst was still on schedule and required her to avert it. Furthermore, the crux of destiny Jonathan's divergence had erased had been potentially apocalyptian.

Her purpose was to avert such outcomes, she would not interfere. Besides, it gave her grim satisfaction to deny twilight on yet another world.

Reviewing the yellow guardian's timeline did lead her to other targets however. Better champions perhaps? She would see. The small grey elf lept off the top of the building and grew wings before she'd even begun to fall.

Dawn Summers hummed happily as she bounced around the kitchen making breakfast. She had succeeded in learning three spells last night, an impressive feat she had been told by her teachers. Arcane spirits floated around her like stars as she mixed odd ingredients together in a meal only she would likely enjoy. Not simply because both Buffy and Spike were out already, inspecting that job offer at the Mayor's office, but also because of the odd sense of taste the Monks had granted her upon creation.

The point was, she now knew something that could help with the nightly patrols. Arcane Shield was a remarkably versatile spell, allowing one to create walls that could defend or pen in anything that didn't leach energy quite easily. Even then allowances could be made. That alone was enough to make her invaluable. WIllow's Sumerian chant shields were much stronger and covered more types of enemies, but they weren't able to alter themselves much beyond defend other instead of defend self. Her second spell, Arcane Missile fired bolts of energy she could make either piercing or concussive at will and control while in flight meaning her chances of missing and hitting her friends went way down.

Her final spell was actually a bit of an accident. Magical energies apparently had a tendency to create what her teachers called elemental spirits if you used too much or didn't clean up after yourself. One of several possibilities they said. Fortunately, or unfortunately perhaps, Dawn had an unusually high affinity for spirit magics neither of her teachers really understood and with the glut of spirit magic coming out of the hellmouth the element mixed into her spellcasting almost naturally. Spirit magic significantly lowered the threshold for the formation of elemental spirits. Because of this, little wisps of arcane power had begun popping up around her every time she cast a spell, alarming both professors Stormbreaker and Manathistle. They had worked with her to learn how to control the effect, and even reproduce it intentionally, giving rise to her own private constellation of friends.

Well, friends was stretching it a bit. They didn't really think. Or speak. They were sort of condensed emotions or concepts that spat arcane missiles on command. They could also sacrifice themselves as shields, though their staying power was even worse than her early attempts at the spell. The major issue was that she didn't know how to get rid of them normally as she couldn't absorb them back into her manapool and her teachers had warned her about combining them into a single entity.

She was distracted by the smell of her mini-marshmallow and peanutbutter pancakes burning. Quickly putting her thoughts on hold she turned around to flip them over.

"Daaawwnnn…." Willow said from the doorway behind her. "What's going on here? What are those?"

Spike yawned and popped his shoulders, drawing a glower from the new Mayor, Nicodemus "Nick" Smith. The mayor was trying to court Buffy to be the new face of his police force and was constantly being put off by the former vampire's presence. Well that was alright, he was put off by the whole sleep thing. Not having needed to do it in upwards of a century, it was quite distracting. All the guy did was yammer on, trying to butter Summers up, but they were already going to take the job, what was the point? It was too good to give up, honestly. Night shift, good fights, good money… pretty much what they already did, just with money.

"Right, mate. It's too early in the morning for this shit. Just tell us where we sign, when our first shift starts and we'll be out of your hair." Mayor Nick, who was bald, visibly held himself back from snarling and a glow appeared briefly behind his desk, but when he stood up there was nothing odd, no demony parts for spike to tear off.

"I have tried to be polite for the sake of Ms Summers, but _what_ precisely, are you doing here, vampire? Under this administration any unlicensed demons are to be driven out or hunted down. I've left you alone because you work with the Slayer, but continue to try my patience and you'll be her first assignment. Given what my reports tell me about your relationship I don't get the impression she'd mind dusting you."

Spike chuckled. "Your reports are out of date, mate. Sides," he nodded his head towards the petite warrior. "I'm here for the same job she is. License pending."

Nick put one hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Is this true, Ms Summers? I do hate to be misinformed."

"Yup!" Buffy chirped. "One of our friends, Jonathan Levinson,"

"Licensed sorcerer, he stopped making his payments last week. Cops said his place was abandoned?"

Buffy's mood darkened at that, and she looked down at her lap where her hands were. "Yeah, he, ah, sacrificed himself to save my sister. But he left some things behind. A serum that could return vampires to life and cure a variety of mystic ailments. Spike took one of them. Got his soul back, his life back and got rid of his chip. Now he wants to work for the group full time."

Spike nodded smugly and cut in. "And when Buff mentioned your offer, I figured, better this than working for the librarian. I'm no good with sales, give me a good scrap any day."

The Mayor sat down and nodded. "This would be the same serum being sold by Anyanka Jenkins from the 'Magic Box'." Buffy nodded. There was a note of hesitation there, which The Mayor intended to look into later, but it seemed that being direct was a better foot for working with the woman, so… he could adjust. "So, you'll take the job?"

"Yeah, I think it'd be good for me. I really thought about it back in highschool, but then career day happened and..." she trailed off.

Nick nodded. "The order of Taraka." He gave Spike a look.

"Hey now, mate. Don't go bringing up ancient history… That's water under the bridge, that is!"

Both of them pointedly ignored Spike. "Do you have any problem being the new face of the Sunnydale Police Department?" He asked, seriously.

Buffy hesitated. "I'd rather just be a detective… but yeah, I think I could do it. Be the mascot, point girl, pretty face at any press meets. I don't have to train anyone do I? Because last time… that didn't work out too well."

"The Demon Research Initiative… Director Margaret Walsh should never have been put in charge of anything other than an operating room." Buffy opened her mouth to protest but the Mayor held up his hand. "Before the D.R.I. Dr. Walsh was an expert and awarded transplant surgeon working on robotic limb replacement research. Her psychological profile was not suited to command, but before coming to Sunnydale she was at least stable. And no, we do not expect you to train anyone, though we would appreciate it. We're currently negotiating with Wesley Wyndam-Pryce to take that job, but he seems determined to remain solo. We're also trying to contract a Mr. Winchester, but he's proving rather difficult to get ahold of. Mr Giles has also been approached, but he rebuffed our offer. If you think you could change his mind, that could be added to your daily duties. Now, is there anything _you_ want? My office is not above offering incentives to valued employees."

Buffy shrugged. "I guess I want what every hero wants from their government." She replied, a bit of her usual pep returning. "No evil conspiracies, don't try to end the world, don't try to kill me for arbitrary reasons. Taking care of my friends in the nice way would be good too I guess. And keeping the creditors at bay while I work on earning that paycheck, mom's hospital bills were almost as horrifying as my first vampire."

The Mayor's lips twitched. "I see your friend Xander's sense of Humor is rubbing off on you." thinking back on the Slayers words he nodded. "I suppose we could Hire your friend Spike as a beat cop. Our training and armaments are improving weekly, but we still need fresh bodies. Though his being human now means he'll need to go through the academy before we send him into the field, rather than concurrently." Spike tried to speak but Mayor Nick only spoke louder as he continued. "As for your friend Xander, we're building a supermax prison at the edge of town where the abandoned military depot used to be. Mr Harris is a forman if I remember, I'll see that his company receives the commission to renovate the place."

Buffy nodded and smiled. "Spike could use someone regularly slapping him over the back of the head, but I think you may have a little trouble with that."

"Yeah!" Spike crowed. "I didn't just get myself a shiny new soul. Got myself some powers to go with it! Give Summers a run for her money, I can."

The mayor closed his eyes and counted to 10, praying for patience. He had really wanted to get rid of spike when he hired the slayer, but it seemed that wasn't going to happen any time soon. "Does this have anything to do with recent reports from licensed citizens that you beat them up, looking for the Nezzla clan remnants?"

Spike resisted the urge to reach for the pouch where the orbs were hidden, but instead grinned and replied. "I don't know what you're talking about, chief. So, about that job..?"

~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+

Jonathan groaned and stretched as Lynet got the companions up in the grey predawn light. The former banshee had changed much of her face and body in subtle ways, but kept the crimson hair. "We'll be sleeping in silvermoon silk." She told them firmly over a breakfast she'd prepared from fish summoned out of the nearby ocean. Apparently, even being on the edge of an apocalyptic magic zombie paradise couldn't stop sea life. "If the elven enclave we met up with is somewhere in the city, we'll find them and present Dar'khan's head. That should get us the Royal treatment. If they're not here, we keep looking. Either way, I intend to spend our time in the city shopping."

Jonathan made a face. "Shopping?" he asked. It seemed some things remained the same even across stelar and racial boundaries. He really hoped she meant looting. He could handle looting things from fantastic ruins. Less cloths shopping, even if it was for something as practical as stylized armor.

Lynet nodded. "Shopping. If there is one thing our people are famous for, it's our enchanted items. If silvermoon has been reclaimed after Arthas attack, such things can be bought. If it hasn't they can be won. I hate to think it, but this is one place where the death of so much of our people is an advantage. Purchasing powerful and rare items will be cost effective while looting them from the undead will only make us bigger heroes. Either way, we're stronger for it."

Ysolde looked at her oddly. "You're certainly… pragmatic" he replied voice and expression strained. "If I'm not much mistaken, the elves were proud enough of their own people to be disdainfully distant during the second war, and downright Nationalist afterwards, to the point of xenophobia."

Starpetal growled slightly, his retort clipped. "Politicians overreacting," he said tightly "but not without reason." Jonathan and Ysolde looked at him pointedly and he continued. "What do you know about the Elven history? Or the War of the Ancients?" He addressed Ysolde.

"Not much, I'll admit." The transgendered shadow mage replied. "It's an elven legend about the end of the world that most books only talk about in the vaguest of terms. It all sounds very… mythic."

Starpetal huffed. "There's very little myth about it. Ten thousand years ago, The Great Sea was a vast area of rolling hills, open plains and vast forests. The Elven empire stretched from Darrowmere lake to the dread Maelstrom and an equal distance past it. In those times, the Maelstrom itself was a lake of the purest arcane power. Magic so thick it became water. In this vast lake of infinite power we heard the voice of our goddess, and we called her Elune. Between the guidance of our goddess and the scholars at our many universities the elves crafted items of world shaking power and unlocked the secrets of creation itself. For five thousand years our empire was unchallenged despite finding enemies among the troll empires, the dread Qiraji and the proud Vrykul and their giant were the pinnacle of civilization and magical study with a great deal to be proud of."

"And then you lost it all to demons, apparently. What happened? Some idiot summoner get greedy?"

Darkpetal scowled at the neo-elf. "Don't be absurd, we are not humans..." He grimaces and looked at Jonathan. "No offense" he offered with a shrug.

Jonathan frowned and shrugged, wondering if it was perhaps best that people continued to mistake him for a gnome. "I'll let this one go." He replied sullenly, opening his laptop and typing down what had already been said.

Starpetal nodded. "No, it was not a summoning, or a failure to properly bind a contract that did us in." He scowled deeply now. "It was, however, greed. Our empress, Azshara, had been our leader for a thousand years and over the last few centuries wanted a weapon that would do what our 5000 years of studying magic had not and wipe out the lesser races, so that only elves and beasts would walk upon the face of Azeroth. Under the corrupt influence of her chief advisor Xavius Moonshadow they tore open reality to find the Twisting Nether, the origin of the universe and home to the infinite energies of light, void and their children, the Arcane and Fel. Drunk with the power they first enslaved, and then contracted openly with the Burning Legion, our queen Azshara believing she had gained enough power to contract directly with the Legions God, Sargeras and become his wife."

"This act led to a civil war where the adherents of the Moon goddess gathered the main army and population of elves along with the other races of Azeroth to strike back against and resist the flood of demons. The war held a lot of give and take, but with Elune and her pantheon at our side, we won, in spite of the betrayal of the dragonflights. The resulting battles, and the brothers Stormrage victory against the Legion however came at a price. The artifact they used to banish the infinite army of the burning Legion **and** their god was stolen from the dragon god Neltharion the Earthwarden. Neltharion had gone mad during the war and caused the betrayal of the dragon flights. The fight between the Legion, the dragons and the Stormrage brothers caused a magical cataclysm that sunk most of the world even as the demons were vanquished."

"Our prejudice against the other races came in the aftermath. The demons had learned of our world, and we had learned to our cost that the order of Arcane attracts the chaos of Fel. Fear of the Legion's return and the appearance of warlocks fed into a foolish ban on Arcane magic, but not only did many of our rebel army refuse to give up magic. Noble families and scholars mostly, but the shaman of the lesser races were also falling prey to the demons whispers. Where the elves learned to hide ourselves and set up wards against the Fel, the lesser races never did despite teaching. Eventually the incidents grew too many and the fear grew too great and so those who would not give up our magic were banished."

"We came here. First to Lordaeron, 300 years later to Quel'thalas. We took over the sunwell plateau and replanted the well of eternity in the lake at its summit. Then we used the powerful magics there to build a shield over our land that demons might never return." Manapetal sighed. "Seven thousand years the elves have lived in this land. Longer even than our empire of old from the dawn of our race. Through all that time the lesser races practiced magic, both crude and advanced. After a time, we taught them ourselves. But they never could learn to hide themselves from the Fel and always there were those who would turn to the fel for power, ignorant of its dangers, or worse, well educated and arrogant. In the four thousand years since we allice with the humans and created Dalaran there have been 19 thousand demon attacks and three demon wars within Lordaeron. All of those before the first war with Medivh and Gul'dan."

"That actually is the irony of the thing. Medivh was the latest in a three and a half thousand year old line of champions, empowered to practical godhood by the high lords of dalaran and charged to hunt and slay demons wherever they may be found. They were very successful too. Even after Medivh's mother went rogue and kept the power for herself for a thousand years, they were successful; keeping the world almost totally free of demons for all that time. Then Medivh summoned our worst nightmare."

"The orcs," Ysolde interrupted, her voice disgusted.

Both elves nodded gravely, "Indeed."

"Excuse me for being a noob here, but what are these orcs like?" Jonathan asked. "I mean, orcs are on a lot of worlds, and they're generally evil, but the degree varies a lot."

Lynet answered. "Seven feet tall, green hides like leather armor, wider than humans but musclebound, not fat. Sloping forehead and expanded jawline with tusks. As charred skulls they look rather alot like a human had a child with sharks. As a part of the scourge I heard that their current Leader, curiously name Thrall managed to ally with forces of Princess Proudmoore of Kul Tiras against the Legion. Ner'zhul was pretty surprised about it because it wasn't part of his grand plan; so maybe they've changed, but during the 'second war' they were monsters. The worst of human bandits paired fel-forged armor and enough numbers they could have been several human nations. Rape, torture, an original method of creating undead, you could track them because they defiled the earth as they moved and killed it wherever they set up camp. Even 17 years later by the time the third war started there were still places the human priests hadn't gotten around to consecrating which were dead from the fel energies infesting the ground. Whenever they moved through a city or town they would slaughter everyone, men women and children and leave the place in rubble. The only survivors were rapes, those cities with sizable armies there for them and those refugees who weren't run down and killed for sport."

Jonathan nods. Right, the bad kind of orcs. Warhammer chaos whaaagg! and Lord of the Rings Uruk type bad.

"Yes," starpetal murmured. "The orcs were a nightmare. A culture who had given themselves almost entirely over to the fel, as we hadn't fought since the war of the ancient. They ravaged Lordaeron of many of its cities, much of its armies and stole the obelisks which hid us from the Legion. In the southern half of Quel'thalas we elves used to have two dozen settlements. When the orcs came to attack us they were aided by our neighbors, the trolls. Only three large cities outside Ban'dinoriel, the elfgate; the rest were destroyed utterly. An'telas, An'dorath and An'owyn all survived because they were fortified cities used as primary evacuation points and hosted significant portions of the elven army, as each was essential to the magical defenses of the heartland."

"Despite the successful defense of silvermoon and the fortified cities on the outskirts it very much looked as if we were going to lose the war. More and more humans were turning to fel magic, the orcs rampaged against desperate opposition, and enslaved dragons rule the skies. All of azeroth would have been as you saw in your travels, decades sooner had the orcs not betrayed themselves at the human's final defense. The leader of their warlocks, Gul'dan stole half of the orcish horde, all of their warlocks, death knights and most of their dragons and abandoned the warchief the night before the final battle and set out to sea. Their warchief Doomhammer sent out much of the Horde to chase them down for their betrayal and the orcish horde was reduced enough that the alliance could break the siege. The orcs never recovered after that and the betrayers never returned. I can only assume they slaughtered each other over some prize out at sea."

"The Tomb of Sargeras." Ysolde interjected. "Ner'zhul wanted to go there when the Legion invaded, but the archipelago is mostly sunk and swarms with Naga."

"Mostly sunk?" The other three ask together.

Ysolde nods. "Kel'thuzad was grumbling about it. Apparently there's a mountain full of dragon bones on the only exposed part of the island but it's guarded by giants and cows. I'm not sure what's up with the cows, but it was his last rant before I was given to Dar'Khan. The naga have some sort of shielded underwater city there and most of the islands are covered in reefs that swarm with the monsters. They probably killed the orcs while the two sides were fighting over the tomb, which is also sunk. It's said in the Song of Aegwynn that the guardian herself raised the entire island chain from the depths of the ocean so that she could use the cursed ruins of an elven city as a base for enchanting an unbreakable prison. Once done, she filled it with all of the demonic artifacts she'd been unable to destroy in her 1000 years of service and sunk the islands back into the crushing fathoms below. Obviously that was a bit of an exaggeration."

"Or Gul'dan died raising it back to the surface." Jonathan countered.

Ysolde shrugged. "Right. So, I can kinda, sorta, maybe see why you don't trust other races to not play with the demons. The loss of your empire, 7000 years of humans stumbling over them and killing them, the orcs, losing your shield against them… but what does that have to do with you pulling out of the alliance, becoming uppity xenophobes and now saying the death of your race is a good thing? If I were an elf in that situation I'd have made it my business to interfere as much as possible, erecting shields against the legion everywhere and setting up cities and organizations whose culture was based around defending the damn things..."

Lynet and Manapetal winced. "We tried," they said in unison.

The two elves looked at each other, holding a conversation entirely made out of facial expressions before Lynet picked up the explanation. "Because of both the long running and recently traumatic incidence with fel, Anestarian and the Convocation of Silvermoon voted almost unanimously to withdraw. The human lands were in chaos and elves had to protect elves first. On top of that..." Lynet blushed. "We didn't exactly know how the shield worked."

Jonathan gave her an incredulous stare and she blushed harder. "It was made thousands of years ago! Aside from a few enchanters who were trained to maintain the stones against degradation we never needed to bother with them! They hid us from two of the three forces of the twisting nether and stripped any non elven magic users of their power while within the shield. Other than that they worked and weren't getting weaker was all anyone else cared to know!"

Jonathan buried his face in his hands and Ysolde choked somewhere between a giggle and a more manly chuckle. "Negligent eldar… the tropes are hungry…"

Lynet sniffed and turned her head away, continuing the explanation. "More than half of the remaining elves were tasked with reinventing the shields. Some of us even journeyed south to the Dark Iron ruins to study the stolen stones the orcs had used to create their altar of storms, a corrupted monument which twisted and enslaved the elemental spirits of the land into weapons for the Horde and food for their demon masters. Huge sections of intricate rune-work were ruined however, as orcish runes were carved into the stone over top of them. I'd estimate that had we been given another year we could have recreated the stones and begun spreading the shield across the whole of Azeroth."

"But then the scourge happened…" Lynet shook her head. "Many believed, before I died, that our kingdom was going to die because the humans abandoned us; but it was out closing the borders that stopped us from recognizing the peril of the scourge before they appeared on our doorstep. Our fear and pride that had us abandoning them. Most of the fools who left us alone and without allies died that day, and they held most of the powerful, valuable, artifacts of the elven people, but far too many innocents went with them. I can only imagine what attitudes are like now."

Ysolde snorted. "Probably just as stupid as when your retreat caused Greymane to build his wall." S/He scoffed. "You were bound tighter than alot of other banshee, but I was Dar'khan's personal assassin for the last five years, so I got to hear a lot. Human/Elven relationships aren't good. You have my Lord Garithos and your Prince Kael'thas to thank for that." The other three looked at her with avid interest. "Garithos blamed the elves for the loss of his fief when they came for your shield stones. He was also the only lord to survive the scourge and Legion both, so he took over the efforts to reclaim Lordaeron from the scourge. Before the rise of the forsaken cut us off from western Lordaeron Garithos was going out of his way to be terrible to the elves. But then… he was terrible to anyone who wasn't human, so maybe they didn't notice?"

Starpetal and Lynet looked at each other. "Let's just get to Silvermoon." "Perhaps it's best if Jonathan keeps up the lie of being a gnome." They said at the same time.

~! #$%^&*()_+

The gates of Silvermoon city glittered like giant rubies in the afternoon light as the companions approached. Even miles away, the huge cream colored stone walls seemed enormous, but now that they were nearby Jonathan felt even a giant would feel small against this bulwark. The gates however, were ajar as they approached and there were no elves there to greet them. Feeling uneasy, the elves readied spells and Jonathan unslung his rifle, the chamber open, unsure whether to load it with darts or a quickly conjured bullet.

As they approached the first square of the unnaturally silent city, an animalistic growl sounded from several places around them and everybody tensed.

"Shields," Starpetal hissed, and Ysolde gave him a dirty look before releasing the dark energy wafting dangerously over her fingers and conjured a shimmering purple dome over them.

As if that was the signal to attack, two dozen figures leapt out of cover around the intersection, coming out of windows, doors and allyways; a few even even seemed to pop out of the ground, though the water and smell suggested something more along the lines of a sewer.

The creatures rushed the group and began pawing at the barrier… _and tearing off handfuls of the purple light!_ The creatures stuffed it into their mouths and made sounds somewhere between growls and eating and Jonathan recognized what he was seeing. As the two veteran elves and the neo-elf looked at the wretched in horror, Jonathan loaded the first dart into his gun and fired it point blank out of the shield.

The crack of CO2 shook his compatriots from their stupor and and Manapetal let loose with an explosion of violet energy which threw the twisted elves back while Lynet let loose with a whip of twisted indigo light which snapped and hissed at the deformed humanoids. Jonathan watched, mechanically loading and shooting more of the elves as his friends defense struck an odd parody of success and failure. The arcane energies they were using did little to hurt their attackers, except for Lynet's spell which Jonathan swore felt like the grave as she waved it around, but the withered were mightily distracted from attack as they groped at the power being unleashed and drew it into starving mouths.

The withered Jonathan had shot however, stayed down. His companions hadn't noticed yet, but each of the withered, after taking a hit, suffered enormous pain before transforming once more into tall fair skinned elves. All of them lay there where they fell quietly sobbing and in the end, only one attacker remained before Jonathan paled. He had reached into his bag for another dart and come up empty. There were no more darts. He was out of Moh'ra blood.

"Ysolde," he barked "feed that goblin spells until it faints! Starpetal, Lynet, I need you to go outside of the shield and start gathering up the rest. We may not have alot of time, and I don't have any more elixer!"

The lot of them looked at him, first in consternation than in dawning comprehension. "Oh… _**oh!**_ You _healed_ them?"

Jonathan nodded and when she didn't move, slapped her on the butt. Her expression turned from wonder, to anger, and then grim determination. "Right. But we're going to talk about that later." She swore before dragging starpetal with her. Within minutes they had returned with two dozen elves, men women and teens.

Most of them were still crying, but looked happy rather than sad. One of them though, saw Ysolde and got a panicked expression on his face and grabbed him. "Stop that! _Stop it!_ " he shouted at her hysterically. "Magic calls them, like flies to carrion! Do you want to become withered too? Because I'd kill myself before going back to that!"

As if to accent his point the sound of all too human voices howling war cries like hunting wolves sounded from all around them.

Ysolde swore and gained a vicious grin. "They want mana huh?" He asked savagely. "Let's poison the honey trap!" Jonathan watched in consternation and just a little horror as Dar'khan's body was consumed by light devouring black power before lancing out from the neo-elf like a water jet. A plum colored wall of light shot up around them wherever the jet touched the ground and Ysolde reappeared, panting and collapsed to the ground.

"Damnit, Ysolde," Jonathan hissed, marching up to the transgendered elf. "That better not be deadly. I can save them if given the chance. I just need more blood!"

Ysolde scoffed. "It's not deadly." he waved off Jonathan's concern. "At least not immediately. That's a greater arcane ward, a wall of solid mana. I just spiked it with a troll spell to put anyone who touches it into coma. It'll be good for a few thousand victims."

Jonathan didn't have time to feel relieved at that though because two of the newcomers saw fit to make comments. The first scoffed. "A few thousand? How many elves do you think live here, fool? This was a city of two million before Arthas. The Wretched number in the _tens_ of thousands." While the second fell to her knees and grabbed Jonathan by the shoulders.

"You healed us, Gnome?" She asked, voice desperate. "How much blood do you need? You can drain me dry if you save my husband and daughters!"

Jonathan looked at her wide eyed and shook his head. "I'd like to save, them. I can, but it's not your blood I need." He explained to the desperate looking woman. "It's a summon of mine and I'm out of materials."

Her hands tighten on Jonathans shoulders and her eyes widen with a somewhat crazed look. "Fine, whatever you need! Please, just tell me!" Lynet grabs her and the elf lady starts struggling and screaming, "Tell me, tell me, please!"

"We need to get to safety." Starpetal barks out commandingly, drawing the attention of the gathered elves from Jonathan to himself. "Do you know of anywhere we can hide from these… _things,_ so our companion can prepare his spell?"

The people grumble, mutinous, but a black haired elf steps forward from the crowd and answers. "On the far side of the city our people have begun to rebuild and reclaim our homes, but magic they put up to guard themselves burns and twists your guts when you eat it. I don't know if it's really safe to go there, but the wretched stay well away."

"Where are they set up?" He asked, still using that commanding tone he claimed he learned as a teacher. Jonathan wasn't so sure, but it _was_ effective.

"The whole royal district, I think," another elf replied. "Memories from our time as wretched are… vague, but i'm pretty sure they took over the Sunstrider spire first, where the convocation used to meet."

Mana petal nodded and began crafting a portal.

While everybody had been talking the wall of plum magic keeping them safe was being tested. Jonathan and several of the elves watched in wonder as withered elves piled one on top of the other, snoring loudly as they fell through the barrier bodies drinking in the crackling mana. Other withered quickly learned not to touch the barrier, but foolishly, or perhaps insane with greed or hunger, tried to drain them fallen friends, only to fall prey to the same enchanted slumber.

Ysolde giggled drunkenly off to the side, occasionally gesturing with a hand and pushing the barrier outwards to catch more starved elves in the effect. The wall however, was quickly becoming transparent and as the carpet of slumbering elves grew, holes began to form in the wall.

Jonathan looked to the side where Lynet was comforting the hysterical woman. What promises she was making of him he didn't know, and that worried him, but he was honest in what he'd stated earlier. For the same reason he had offered to save Dawn before this whole terrifying adventure started, he was going to keep his ill-spoken promise to save these elves too.

"It's time to go." Jonathan was distracted by a command behind him. Manapetal had finished his portal and was ushering people through it. The group vanished to the other side quickly and Jonathan was among the last, alongside Ysolde and finally Manapetal before the portal closed.

Ysolde was still tittering to himself. "Void, that was hilarious! They're so stupid! I don't think even the scourge pulled a poisoned well quite that easily! I mean, even stratholme it was only the people around the bakeries that actually got infected. Arthas and his army caused most of the casualties on their own! Though of course, once the dread lords started raising the dead, things just sort of snowballed from there..."

Jonathan grimaced. Yeah, zombie apocalypses were like that, or so the movies told you. Most of the casualties come from people trying to stop them, either by penning people in for maybe being infected, or for screwing up trying to clear the city.

He quickly distracted himself with looking around their new surroundings. It was a large airy room filled with gauzy drapes, plush (if moldy) cushions, and velvet carpets. Looking at Manapetal in askance. "A den," he explained simply. "This one catered mostly to the cities aristocracy as they came down from deciding important matters for the elven people. The best wines, exotic herbs from all over the seven kingdoms, and of course men or women as struck your fancy. I've been here a few times. Mina was my favorite. She 'worked' here to relax after she closed her jewelry each day."

Jonathan shook his head. Sexy elves. He couldn't wait. Crisis now though, fun later. "Any idea where I can find some cherries?" he asked. "And I should probably ask Ysolde to set up that coma spell again in case the Moh'Ra is… uncooperative. Also, do you know where to get salt? I mean, we crossed that giant bridge earlier this morning, so if worst comes to worst, we can just find the shore and make some, but..."

"You'd prefer not to go to the effort." Manapetal nodded. "I completely understand. I suppose you can't do it without..?"

Jonathan shook his head. "More than 70% of the magic on my world is ritual based."

Manapetal never got the chance to comment though, because that was when the doors burst open and in walked up with a stream of elves in red armor, carrying tower shields and warglaives. "Intruders to Silvermoon, you have opened an unau...ther… Elves? Light be! It's been some time since we had more survivors! Are you lot from down south? What news of stormwind?"

Jonathan groaned. It really never stopped, did it?


	7. Twisted paths

Starpetal stepped forward, body language first confident and commanding, and then hesitated. "We're not from Stormwind, spellbreaker. We're adventurers from the Argent Dawn and former Wretched. My name was Davion Starpetal and this is our captiain Jonathan, son of Levin, Gnomish Paladin responsible for your citizens recovery."

The young man went white and forcibly kept his eyes from bugging out. He waved a hand shakily at the imposing, apparent mage hunter, and forced himself not to quail under the suspicious glower. "The guild of scourge hunters and scavengers from the southern kingdoms." The man acknowledged, relaxing visibly. "I take it then you're the 'fake death knight' responsible for the last group of refugees."

Jonathan nodded and Manapetal continued, taking encouragement from the guards drop in hostility, though Jonathan could see incredulity and wariness still clear on their faces.

"Yes, most our party was collected within Silvermoon itself from the ranks of the Wretched. However, Jonathan's light-forged alchemy ran out before we could save more than a dozen."

The red armored soldier pursed his lips and stood straighter. "This is an extraordinary story. You understand we'll have to verify it before allowing you into the protected zone."

Davion nods. "Of course, that is to be expected. I'm sure we'll all consent to being placed under guard while you bring us to someone in charge."

The 'spellbreakers' pull back to the doors from which they had burst into the room and form ranks, causing Johothan and many of the formerly wretched elves to cringe. The sorcerer makes his way over to the man and catches a muttered comment by one of the revived elves.

"Light-forged alchemy, ha! What sort of wears a necromancers armor and uses blood?"

"The type who wants to hide from the undead."Jonathan replies, grabbing Starpetal's hand and leading him away from the others. Ysolde and Lynnette also took notice and moved to join them as fast as would not cause panic by their guards.

"Why did you tell them that?" Jonathan hissed. "Couldn't you have come up with a lie better than an organization I know nothing about?"

The professor frowns. "I was more concerned they would try to verify my identity and become suspicious or else reject anything I had to say on account of my new body being a half-blood. Such distinctions are decidedly _not_ favored here. _"_ He returns calmly. "As for the Argent Dawn, they're a noble if motley sort. The order is a new one drawn from all races whose only requirement is that you dedicate your life to countering the scourge. Any attempt to discredit our membership would be pointless as any member may recruit and many do without telling the rest about it."

"Starpetal has the right of it," Ysolde tells you, voice low, "but he forgets an important detail. You've no training in, nor items infused with, the Light. To the point, it'd behoove you" she turns to Lynette "to get rid of those soul-blades. Its just lucky that armor you made Jonathan lost its enchantments fuling the ritual, or they'd have attacked us on sight for wearing it. The rest of us at least have good elven garments, even if they are a little torn and bloodstained. Remember, while you were used to counter resistance efforts, I've did reconnaissance and assassination here. They're VERY jumpy about necromancy."

Lynnette raises a red brow. "And they won't be suspicious of our claiming to have fought our way through the plague lands, all of quel'thalas and be accompanied by reclaimed wretched? Don't be daft. They already have witnesses to Jonathan and my banshee self working together. We're going to be thoroughly examined no matter our story, never mind if one of us slips up and reveals elements of the real story. That's why we cut off the betrayers head in the first place rather than just letting you have your fun. As soon as someone important comes to review us, we pull it out."

Jonathan raised his hand and the others looked at him. "I've been thinking over the things you told me about Dar'Khan, won't they be suspicious about how we even **managed** to take him out? I mean, he was supposed to be able to singlehandedly duel all of your senators." In a medieval society where ass-kicking equaled authority, it was a valid concern.

Lynette smiled at him. "They will be suspicious. But that's where keeping the daggers comes in, allowing them to write us off as simple assassins. They'll also scout or scry Deatholme to confirm our story. The crater there will waylay all of their concerns, I'd wager."

"And how much would you wager, Lady adventurer?" A voice asks, cutting through the conversation.

The group turns around to see a column of figures clad in more red and black armor halfway between them and the door. Lynette's eyes widen and Starpetal pales while Jonathan and Ysolde look on in confusion. His confusion quickly turns to alarm. The forward two figures, a sallow skinned elf with a blue ponytail and intricate red and gold robes, and a warrior in resplendent crimson and black armor with a goatee and wicked scar running across his face. Most importantly though, both of their eyes blaze with a poisonous green light. It's nothing like the cool jade of his new power, but familiar nonetheless. Like a half remembered ritual.

"Lor'Themar Theron!" Lynette goes into an awkward curtsy and Starpetal settles for a salute. Darkwhisper sneers slightly before settling into an expression of smug superiority. "I'd wager my life on it, Ranger Lord" the redhead replies, reaching for the sack with our supplies and Dar'khan's head.

Lor'Themar's guards tense and a neon green spell weaves itself around the purple elf's wrist as she pulls out the box containing their trophy and presents it to the military commander.

While one of the Guards marches forward to retrieve it, stopped by an exasperated Ranger Lord, Jonathan's eyes fixate on the purple elf. "Demon..." he breathes softly, eyes flicking up to the elf's eyes as the dark power strikes a familiar chord to his memories of life in Sunny Hell and the power of the helmouth. He looks back and forth between Lor'themar and the mage, lips pursed. The energy is wrong despite its familiarity, not the same dark magic from home but somehow... purer. The guy was obviously a fellow warlock, but the thing Jonathan wasn't sure of was if he was just bad at cleansing, didn't even bother, or was an outright half-demon.

The elf locks eyes with him and glares. Immediately there's a sort of pressure on his temples and his eyes begin to itch. "Gra ix ta Arashmahar, ikalgo nex" the earth-warlock whispers, invoking Arashmahar, plane of Vengeance, and draws in dark magic. Thus done, he grabs onto the mental probe and the world falls away around them, slowing as if stuck in molasses.

 _You're not a paladin_ the elf replies, mental voice smug, curious and suspicious. As the elf speaks the by gets a sense of his opponent. Rommath, One of the few surviving Magisters from the Fall of Silvermoon. He's also recently learned Chaos Magic, which is the reason for the nauseating green spells.

 _And you're not very good at cleansing yourself_ he replies. _I could teach you. It would be... nostalgic._ He said, thinking of how he had learned with Willow Rosenberg, and how he'd taught his friend Andrew Wells.

 _Cleansing myself?_ The elf laughs. _Of what? Sheer power? This is my masters gift! A promise of renewal and hope to all blood elves!_ Through the connection Jonathan saw an image of elves draining magic from a variety of objects and creatures, several of whose power staggered him just with Rommath's memory of their presence. Most though, and most unfortunately, were demons, captured and imprisoned in giant crystals. The warlock could appreciate the ingenuity it took to make a workaround like that, but they were using demons who's power was too...meager for the effort involved. Better than contracting perhaps, but that led to their current...stupidity.

Jonathan snorts, projecting derision. _And who is your master? What greedy, betrayal happy idiot demon have you pledged your service too that mental stability and freedom from outside influence is to be laughed at?_

 _No demon, boy. My Lord, Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider taught me..._ An image of the blond 'prince' and numerous impressions of the man appeared in Rommanth mind, but in the most prominent one he was kneeling to another, rather than having others kneeling to him.

 _That's a lie._ Jonathan, cut him off, _and not a very good one either. You're not familiar with Telepathic communication are you? Another reason you need me._

The elf's eyes narrowed and brightened in a glare and Jonathan got an impression of another (much darker purple) elf, only this one was mutated to match the visage of a classic demon. It's feet were cloven hooves, hands held wicked talons, teeth became fangs, great rams horns curved up from the elves forehead, draconic wings loomed folded across the back and it's eyes were literal pits of fire. **Illidan Stormrage, Lord of Outland, The Betrayer.**

Then the Image turned to **look at him** and Jonathan quickly backpedaled, drawing back the strength of his probe to just barely enough to maintain the connection, a headache rapidly forming at his temples.

 _So that is what it feels like..._ the elf replied, irritated but thoughtful. _Yes, I am acquainted mostly with searching the thoughts of others. My own people have more respect than that and_ lesser _races have never had the skill nor power to challenge my command over my mind Few enough even know how reply... Perhaps there are things we could learn from each other... gnome was it? But no, that's not right either. … **you're human...**_

Jonathan could feel the disdain and fury rippling off those words and caught more glimpses of the elf's past, unbidden. Those of a armored bearlike human noble and a rather impressive Gothic Fantasy prison. _Garithos, I presume? I have it on good authority even his human troops and sub-commanders hated him._

The rage diminished to a dull throb, but the disdain ratcheted up a notch. _Disloyalty. As expected from humans._

 _Disloyalty makes the assumption I ever owed the man Loyalty,_ the boy counters _can't be loyal to someone you've never met. Unless you're referring to the mans soldiers, in which case I'd tell you human Loyalty is nuanced and must be earned rather than given._

 _On that at least, we are in full agreement, human._

 _So... what happens now? Will you take my offer?_

 _I think not._ The Magister replied, causing Jonathan's blood to rise. An image of Dar'khan's head appears in his mind briefly and he continues. _Your friends service to Silvermoon notwithstanding, we're not in a position to entertain... guests, at the moment._

Jonathan's eyes narrowed and he tried to suppress the feeling of resentment and hostility no doubt projecting across the link and replied slowly. _But you're not the one who decides that, are you?_ He asked digging into his opponents mind once more. An image of the white haired elf beside the magister flashed though Rommath's mind, despite the elfs obvious resistance. _It's Reagent Lord Lor'themar Theron's. While it's true that my friends were the ones to take down Dar'khan, I was the one who took down Deatholme and provided the spell that just broke the deadlock on your ley lines and healed some of the wretched. You elves are starving for magic and desperately holding out against the scourge, right? You're welcome, in the last week I did more for your people than you probably have in your life. And I yet have more to offer. You. Owe. Me._

The elf looked floored by the vehement pronouncement and the memories slamming into his mind for a moment, but quickly recovered. _Arrogant welp. I personally saved everyone who still resides in this city when your Prince Arthas stormed through the city and was involved in destroying the sunwell so that it's corruption wouldn't doom the entire world. Now I bring them multiple means of sating their arcane nourishment and a means of escaping this hell which the orcs and humans have created. Regardless, your achievements are debatably relevant. I shall not stand in your way. We shall learn if you can call yourself elf-friend or if they merely served your own survival._

And with that, the magister wrenched control of the spell back from Jonathan and ended it, bringing them both back into the normal flow of time.

The pair of them snap back to their sense as Lynette presents the Tigers-eye blades to the Reagent Lord, the head even now being placed back in its box by a spell-breaker.

"And Impressive feat, to be certain, young Assassin." The Elven leader said thoughtfully. "Would you be willing to relinquish these blades to our mages college. To be able to enchant our weapons to strike down the Undead more permanently would almost be a greater boon than your party ending the traitors existence."

"I... Yes, yes, of course, Ranger General." The redhead nods quickly.

The white haired defacto ruler turns to Rommath and inclines his head. The elf, still as off balance from the mental assault is nevertheless quick on the uptake and conjures a small but ornate display box which he opens before a nervous Lynnette. She places the weapons within, trying not to look hurried and the box is shut. With the important artifacts secured, Lorthemar's expression moves from dour and thoughtful to gracious and open. "Come, my friends. Walk with me. We will need to get you screened and scry Deatholme, but I forsee a small celebration to honor your accomplishments in the cities future. It will coincide nicely with our increased ability to provide arcane rations to the populace." He explains, leading the four of you between the columns of Mage-Hunters. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that?"

Jonathan and Ysolde eye the red plated warriors with trepidation as the group is led out of the room and toward a set of portals, but is distracted by Manapetal answering. "That would be our doing, Ranger Lord." The Magister replies smoothly. "Jonathan provided us with a ritual for magically purging an area. Lynnette and I were able to adapt it for use with Ley-Nexus circuit at a An'owyn and cleanse the countryside of Necromancy."

Lorthemar froze mid-step before stopping just outside the terminus of the portal. "Indeed?"

Jonathan's expression tightens with worry, pride and determination. A quick glare is exchanged with Rommath, but he steps forward and bows slightly. "I can do it again, if need be, Reagent Lord. But understand, the conditions are fairly specific. As are the material requirements. If I could have a lab..."

"We'll see." With that, he vanished into the swirling portal.

~! #$%^&*()_+

Lunch at the Summers residence was... tense, Dawn decided. Willow was spending a significant amount of time worrying over her Arcane Spirits, thinking them similar to the monstrous byproducts of large spells, Buffy was caught between glaring at her for the imagined slight of cavorting with elves and glaring at Spike as he played with his new Police badge and Pistol, and Dawn herself was trying to figure out how to wriggle out their overprotective grip without seeming like a brat.

...Ok, more of a brat than she normally was.

Robo-buffy moved around the table busing plates and laying down new dishes with chirpy, perky commentary and Dawn thanked her for the nuttella and olive hamburger. Taking a bite and savoring the bizarre taste the monks had developed in her, Dawn decided to go for broke.

"They haven't tried to use me to fuel a portal." The table is suddenly stone silent. "What? They haven't. They're not evil. Or at least, not anymore. Or not any more than Spike."

"Hey!" The former vampire exclaims.

"But, how do you know that?" Buffy asks, voice strained.

Dawn grins apologetically at Spike. "Because I do. Call it woman's intuition." Buffy glares at her and she relents. "It was also sort of their sales pitch. 'Hey, we're not the badguys; just to prove it, we'll teach you something to protect yourself.' I think it's worked out pretty well so far. I mean, ok, the arcane spirits are a bit of an 'oops my bad', but that's totally my fault. I just need to work on it a little!"

Buffy and Willow look at each other and the redhead takes up the rebuttal. "So they're not teaching you magic so you can make the portal home for them?"

Dawn blushed and Buffy slammed her fist on the table. "Damn it! Whats next, are they going to try to use the Hellmouth as a doorway like every other idiot who comes to town?"

Dawns blush deepened as she remembered the team that had come back from surveying said Helmouth and shook her head in denial. "No, they want to use the point Jonathan vanished through. They think he got sent to their world rather than dying."

Everybody is silent again. As Buffy and Willow stare at each other, seeming to hold some sort of private conversation, Spike speaks up. "The runt lives huh? Good for him! Stuck in the land of sexy elves? He can hold on till Red whips up some way to check on him."

"We should probably tell Xander," Willow adds, quietly.

Buffy snorts, but nods. "The weren't close, but they were friends. Anya's been distracting him. Loudly. Repeatedly." The she glares at Dawn. "That doesn't get you off the hook though. Floaty lights. Magic. Why?"

"I wanted to do something and they offered." Dawn replies, simply. "As for the arcane spirits, the mix of magic that makes me The Key is ridiculously high in Spirit element, so making these by accident is..."

"You mean earth magic?" Willow asks.

"Spirit, like captain Planet?" Spike laughs.

Dawn shakes her head. "No, Spirit as in Life, Death and cheesy martial arts movies. Apparently magic where they come from is a lot more... pure I guess you'd say. Magic here is frustrating them because everything's a mixed up mess. The power of the Hellmouth is equal parts Death, Darkness, Chaos and Order. Earth Magic is an odd, thin mix of Order, Life, Spirit and the four Primals."

"What about light?" Buffy asks. "If there's Darkness, then there's light, right?"

"Oh, that's up in San Francisco." Spike replies off hand. "A couple of other hot spots like Tokyo, Denmark and others. Hella uncomfortable. Not much of it though. Not as comforting a thought as it used to be."

Everybody looked at him, Dawn more intently than the other two. The Light, though Buffy and Willow may or may not understand, was the Light of Creation, quite possibly the Light Of God. Was there not a hotspot in the middle east? Or did Spike simply not know about it because deserts were just a _really_ bad place to be a vampire? She had no clue, and less about whether to tell the elves or not. Their priestess, Goldenglade, could probably benefit from the knowledge, but the woman was poking at the Helmouth... Which action would make her this years big bad? Dawn hoped neither, but hellmouth...

She shook it off. "Anyway, spirit tends to do funny things to magic, and so, my friends!" The sparks of purple light spun around the room like a disco for a couple of seconds before closing in to hover behind her chair like a constellation of stars. Several of the lights intersected with the Buffy-bot and disappeared, but nobody noticed as the android began passing out ice cream and coffee. Spike dug in ravenously while the girls used it in lieu of conversation as an excuse to think.

Eventually Willow spoke up. "I think Tara and I should go with you next time you meet the elves. Just to see about their teaching methods. Make sure they're not evil and everything."

Buffy nodded. "Yeah. I'll bring Giles along as well. We just had our yearly big bad. Best to make sure we're not about to have another one five months early. That would suck. It's supposed to be summer!"

"Oy, what about me?" Asked the former vampire. "M' I chopped liver or somethin? Didn't we just get deputized by the Mayor?"

Buffy rolls her eyes at him. "You've also got a problem with light fingers. You can watch Dawn when you're not playing Kitten Poker."

"Hey!" Dawn argued. "I'm not some kid! I'm older than you were when you became the Slayer and these are my magic lessons you're talking about going to! And these guys?" She gestured to the remaining Arcane Spirits, who contracted to points and started glowing brightly, "They can put me on your combat level, sis!"

~! #$%^&*()_+

On the other side of town, Warren Meers sat back from the screen where he'd been monitoring the Buffy Bot's visual feed. He'd originally installed the update to the Girlfriend Drone to keep tabs on the Vampire who'd beaten him up to get one, but it had been deactivated _months ago_ by the real Buffy Summers. It had come as a shock to him to see it reengage one night while plotting out the next stage in his, Jonathan and Andrews D &D campaign.

He'd seen his friends 'death' and the birth of the 'elves' but assumed that the creatures had been your standard demon. Now he knew that not only were they not elves, but they had a better understanding of this magic thing than even Rosenburg. Further, Jonothan was on their world, palling around with who knew how many similarly sexy fantasy girls.

Lucky son of a bitch. Shrimp was likely totally blowing it too...

Still, it sort of screwed his plan to have Andrew summon and bind one of them to their will though.

That didn't mean he couldn't have one of course... just no mindless sex-bunnies. And if their approach to things was scientific enough... well, Warren had no qualms about helping them play Star-Trek or Plansewalker. Or getting rich from inter-planetary trade.

Kicking back and spinning around in his office chair, Warren rubbed his hands together and pulled out a cell phone. "It's time to science the shit out of this."

~! #$%^&*()_+

Stockton California, Women's Correctional Facility.

"430019!" Faith Lehaine, the dark slayer, pauses in the middle of a workout routine as the guards call her number across the Prison Yard. Using the bar she was hanging from to do a flip, the empowered warrior lands, snatches a blue burlap shirt from the ground by her feet and heads over to the metal door.

"What is it baldie?" She snarks, squinting up at the tall black man who'd called for her.

"You got a visitor, Lehaine" he replies, bored. "They need you inside."

"Right." She snorts. "Angel again?"

The guard shakes his head. "Nah, someone new this time. Dunno much, but the warden said something about a fairy godmother." He raises the phone on the wall to his mouth and calls into the receiver; "430019 is at the door, clear."

The thick metal slab jerks, a klaxon buzzes, and the door opens. Faith slouches in and gives her new escort a raised brow. The hispanic woman flinches and lowers the set of cuffs she'd been about to place on the dark slayer. "Right, follow me."

The pair of women move through the halls, stopping at various doors for clearance and surprise Faith by heading for the cafeteria rather than the glass and phones visitation rooms. "What's this? I ain't got no family for special treatment."

The Hispanic woman declines to answer and gestures for her to sit at one of the tables, before heading off towards the door. Rolling her eyes, Faith sits down. When the guard reaches the door, it opens and a distortion, like a bad photograph, issues out of it. Faith blinks and rubs her eyes as the distortion moves forward, but when she opens them, it doesn't help. A woman with slate grey skin, pointed ears and bronze fantasy armor is walking towards her in the middle of a rainbow shaded distortion.

"Alright, you pay the guard to dope me, or this some sorta magic bullshit?" she snarks at the possibly imaginary woman.

Said woman's mouth curls up in a grin, showing sharp teeth. "Magic bullshit, Faith Slayer." She replies, sitting down. "Normal humans see me as a Nubian woman in a pants-suit. Even so, this is a good omen."

"Some sort of prophet, huh? Look, you're hot, but I'm here to suffer for my past, not get involved in more destined bullshit. I'm the bad slayer, get it?"

She turned to the side and raised her hand to waive over the guard, but her arm was caught almost before she could do so by the grey woman and forced back down to the table with obscene strength. "Allow me to tell you something about **Destiny** , child. _It can be resisted..._ Even defeated... with a strong enough will. Your destiny, as it stands is to rot here for another year and a half before escaping to try and save the Vampire Angel by returning his lost soul. You will fail to be anything but a delaying action for Willow Rosenburg and move on to living a life of half measures, as an utterly ineffective hero, leaving the same amount of death in your wake as if you'd embraced your nature as a destroyer. Your only true victory comes after Buffy Summers destroys this worlds soul and ends magic, at which point you become a social worker for former slayers. Your impact is that they continue to make an impact. Honorable, to be sure, but a feat which could be accomplished by Dawn, Rupert or Alexander should you not be there."

Tears begin to track their way down Faith's cheeks, and her arm quakes against the against the other womans strength, but her eyes are hard. "Bullshit. That's bullshit! Why say destiny can be fought and then insist mine is to always lose unless you're here with some stupid offer? Alright then, get on with it, bitch!"

The elf's sharp toothed grin widens further. "You always had a way with words. No, contrary to your belief, I am not here with the Powers That Be to bind you into a new more obedient destiny. I am after all, I'm a similarly disobedient child. I'm here to give you a choice. Follow me to a new life. One where you have no destiny. Where nothing is written for you. Beyond the reach of The Powers, where you should never be, and where you can create a life all your own. Yes, there will be violence. But I get the feeling you'll enjoy that. You are not a bad girl, Faith. You were simply born on the wrong world; betrayed and alone. I offer to fix two of the three."

"What... sort of demon are you?"

"Demon? Amusing. I'm a Dragon. Make your choice."

~! #$%^&*()_+

Silvermoon.

The terminus of the portal was the Silver Spire, recently renamed Sunfury spire by it's new owner, Archmage Aethas Sunreaver, leader of the Sunfury guild which split its time between the reclaiming ruined cities of Silvermoon, Dalaran and another site everybody was being cagey about in Jonathan's presence. Each of the elves and Jonathan were quickly paired with two of the city guard while a mage examined them thoroughly. Bands of plum light formed intricate patterns around the adventuring team and misty swirling aura began to form over their bodies from which the magi of the tower began to take notes.

"You said you were a paladin?" The mage examining the small human asked, frowning as he looked Jonathan up and down. Gold light emanated from the crown on his brow, but with a few small exceptions everything else was lightning rimmed turquoise. "You've an alarming spiritual presence, a little necromancy which is consistent with, if a little weak for, your story of having performed a death ritual. You've clearly used a number of arcane spells very recently and there's this odd magic I can't quite define except to say it's similar to the blessings of a Loa, but you've not a arco of Light in you beyond this artifact."

Jonathan nodded, a serious look on his face as an excuse to buy time. Thinking fast he wracked his brain as he had been for the last few minutes to come up with an explanation. "You know the relationship between Life, Spirit and Death magic?" he asked, grasping at straws.

The elf narrows his eyes and the rest of the room turns to look at him. "Yes, but spirit becomes Nature magic with only the slightest taint of light magic. Anything more and the light consumes the spirit three and becomes stronger..."

Jonathan smirked, silently thanking the elf for giving him an out. "And what if one wee little paladin channels enough death magic to kill an entire empire?"

"Then you should be dead." the elf deadpans.

Jonathan raises a hand and taps the crown on his brow. Everybody is looking at it now, and Jonathan feels the urge to cringe and shrink in on himself at the naked hunger in many of their eyes.

Then the elf in front of him shakes himself and his face splits into a smile. "Indeed... indeed. Well, you are cleared to enter Silvermoon, Father Jonathan." He lowers his voice so that only Jonathan should be able to hear him. "I shall... endeavor to see the Regent Lord raises your security clearance, my friend. I hope to escort you to meet one of our... less social residents."

"If we're to be... friends..." Jonathan murmurs back, "Then might I have your name?"

The elf looks slightly nonplussed but nods. "I am Inverneth, head professor for Arcane studies in this state of emergency. I apprentice refugees such as your... friends" he looked over at the former wretched before continuing "and oversee the production of arcane rations for the populace as a training exercise to build young magi's stamina."

Jonathan's eyes widened somewhat at that but instead of responding, filed it away for later. Lynette and Davion had explained how the elves were starving for mana and he had seen the results, both before his appearance on this world and earlier this morning, but he hadn't put much thought into how the issue was dealt with. Of it it was being dealt with at all, given the mana draining abilities he'd seen in Rommath's mind were a rather new addition to the city.

Magi were obviously in great demand. Given how difficult it was to learn ritual based casting, he could only imagine the sort of bottleneck this placed on Azeroth with the requirement that magi do the entire ritual in their head and adjust it on the fly in the case of battle-magi.

Or what a terrifying place it was if they were easy to come by. This world was giving him an ego boost, for all it's terror; but something like that would be a body-blow.

Released from the Mage Trainer's clutches, the young man scuttled over to Lynette's side.

Starpetal and Lynette were released by their examiners quickly enough, but Darkwhisper was held up. Not, much to everybody's relief, because 'his' examiner recognized Dar'Khan's body, but because of the dark power 'he' had used to subdue the Wretched. Magister Surdiel Dawnglow, a veteran of the second war recognized it as the same power Gul'Dan's Death Knights had wielded against the young Alliance.

"It's also the same power that drove our people mad in Tirisfal," Ysolde replied, gruffly, citing an old legend told in the troll books. "Why we left it to the humans, rather than fight them for it. Your point? The void heeds those who despair. You'll find many a former priest turned to it for solace."

" _Heretic_..." Dawnglow hissed. "Spellbreakers, watch this one! He's dangerous."

The red plated warriors straightened to attention at Darkwhipsers sides, but Jonathan clearly heard one of them snort. "And the rest of them _aren't?_ "

Ysolde's eyes flicked over to the former wretched making their way in now to be examined. "I brought most of them down myself. Keep that in mind before quarantining them for void energies" 'he said, and then turned sharply, flaring Dar'Khan's cape dramatically as he moved to join the other three, the spell-breakers shadowing his movements.

The now six man party made their way to the door, and after receiving a nod from a blond elf beside Lor'Themar, they were led, not to a cell, but across a bridge between towers and into an opulent bedroom flush with silks and blush cushions.

"These are old ambassador's quarters." One of the red clad men told them. "Lord Brightwing has been using them to house visitors from Outland and any woman foolish enough to get pregnant in these dark times, but the tower still has some left over space. Don't expect to stay here long. The Prince has promised us allies, so real diplomats will likely be moving in within the fortnight. Consider it a courtesy for the death of the Traitor."

His partner then points first and Jonathan and then Darkwhisper. "You two unfortunately won't be going anywhere without escort, but your teammates can come and go as they please. If you need provisions, they'll be provided to you. If you need money... well, lets just say the Regent Lord and our Prince are likely to be generous. **IF** you behave."

Jonathan adjusts the strap on his pack and smiles innocently. "Do you have any cherries?"

~! #$%^&*()_+

Sylvanas winces as a misjudged dive ends with her back against an uneven boulder in the ruins of Deatholme. Just behind her one of the Royal Guard bursts into wraith form before dissipating with a strangled gurgle. Not pausing to mime regret, real or frined, she rolls out from behind the rock and draws her bow. Ebon tendrils snake between her cocked fingers and the arrow rest, and she pauses just long enough for the pulsing darkness to bridge the distance before firing. The dark arrow shrieks with the power of Death and Void working in entropic concert toward a target that vanishes in a puff of smoke.

" **Et no be dat easy, queeny girl...** " a drawl rasps from behind her, and the banshee leaps forward, out of the near grip on her shoulder.

One pause, one second of hesitation, and oblivion.

 _NO! Not until she had her chance to repay Arthas for what he had done!_

"What is your game, Loa?" She called out, her quarry no longer where she had just left it. The leader of the forsaken makes several gestures to her fellow dark rangers and they spread themselves so that no area and no team member is without over-watch, arrows nocked and eyes wide.

" **Ooh ses I be wantin a ting, queeny girl?"** The ghastly god asks from above, vanishing before a hail of black arrows. " **Mebey da ting I be wantin don deal wit you. Mebey you just be da 'musin' ting en de wae."**

Sylvanas suppressed a curse and scanned the area for the new source of the voice. Dipping into her banshee abilities she projected a whisper to two of her guard. "Selune, return to the Undercity. The Horde must be warned the Amani are rising. We may be able to turn this to our advantage, but not if we wait. Shar, make tracks for Silvermoon, our surviving relatives need to be warned. Take the emergency Hearthstone with you, this diplomatic retunue may need to be...delayed indefinitely."

The two corpses nodded and tensed ready to flee when Sylvanas upped the volume. "What are you interested in then, Bwon Samdi? Perhaps we could come to an arrangement. Trolls are of course welcome in the Horde."

There was silence for almost a minute before the Loa replied. It started in low, and then it started to grow. The great spirit was _laughing_. And not in a pleasant way. " **Dem faithless Orcs? An you queenie? Dead** _ **men**_ **led by dead** _ **ELVES**_ **..."** The voice thundered with that last word and Sylvanas could feel the rocks weather and her own body decay under the sheer power of the Trolls disgust. " **No, I be tinkin you should go afor I do be takin intrest. Shoo, little crying girl, I be waitin for someone. Scream else in de world, afor I decide you scream for me."**

Sylvanas swore, but before she could say anything further a pillar of poisonous green light issued from a black hole in the cloud cover and shivering green flames slammed into a point on the crater wall above them, quickly spreading out and moving towards them in a _Hungry_ manner. The Loa Howled in rage, but the Forsaken cared little. A warlock, or maybe even the Legion itself, had launched a Fel-Firestrike at their location. That meant someone was watching the engagement and whoever it was didn't give a damn that they were there.

On in the case of it being the Legion, thought to take out two priority targets in one fel swoop.

The Banshee's scattered, flying in retreat as fast as their powers would carry them.

~! #$%^&*()_+

"Rommath! What just happened?" Halduron Brightwing Demanded, alarmed as the scrying pool suddenly filled with neon-green light. "Is it the Legion? Spell-breaker's! Prepare the General Alarm! Get the Civilians to the Evacuation points and pre..."

"Calm yourself, Ranger Lord..." The Grand Magister drawled. "And belay that order, Knight Captain. The Legion isn't on it's way, though we should be on the lookout for rogue Warlocks."

"Sire?" Halduron asked, looking to his former commanding officer, Lor'Themar for confirmation, something that by Rommath's expression clearly irritated him.

"It's...not an issue, old friend." The Regent Lord told his replacement Ranger General. "I have a fair Idea who's responsible for this. I'll have a _talk_ with them later. More important is what we've learned. The Forsaken are moving into our territory for a Diplomatic Venture, The Amani have a new Loa and the Gnome's story checks out. Deatholme is no-more and the rest of the world is starting to take notice. Halduron, tell the spell-breakers to be on alert for this 'Shar' and for more Troll attacks. If the Forsaken are here for us, we may be able to welcome more allies. If they're here for the Amani, we need to up our timetable. Rommath, perhaps you should like to tell us more about the Prince's Promised Land?"

The lavender elf pursed his lips and frowned, turning away from the scrying pool to face the pair. "Outland has... many terrains. And numerous holdouts. One, The Blades Edge has a number of large well protected verdant valley's where the Prince has set up for our people to live, but the work progresses slowly. Due mostly to Logistics. Outlands resources are abundant, but largely concentrated in wastelands the orcs have made as hellish as what we have to contend with here. I've cautioned you against moving the civilian population because I fear the shock may cause many of those who have held on to wither. If I may, m'lord..." He grimaces as though chewing on something foul and rotten "we may want to consider finalizing and advancing our plans for Paladin Levinson instead. If he can be used to cleanse the other two gateways, then we can reconstruct Ban'Dinoriel and wait out the Trolls, Undead and Demon as we have for millenia. The Prince only needs a few more months to prepare and the Ley Gates can be constructed underground this time for security and stealth."

Lor'themar nodded slowly. "General?" Halduron straightened "Prepare a scouting party and find some siege engineers. Regardless of the other outcomes The Grand Magisters suggestion has merit, and we've already one city cleansed. Rommath, I'll leave it to you to Introduce our new friends to Lady Liadrin." His eyes narrow. "Make sure the meeting goes smoothly. We do not need a repeat of Galell...or Orovinn."

The pair of them nodded, unhappy but determined.

~! #$%^&*()_+

Jonathan looked up from his computer as the door to their suite snapped shut suddenly and smiled at the sight of Lynnette. The redhead was looking harried and uncomfortable, but otherwise fine, so Jonathan decided to take heart from her appearance rather than anxiety. He turned to Darkwhisper, who was reciting troll texts to him from the basin of a pool sized bath and hit the save button. "Thanks, Ysolde, we'll have to continue this later though. I look forward to seeing what you can do with my books though."

He received a grumbling affirmative and quickly set the machine to the side and hopped, childlike, up to meet his first companion as she made her way across the room. "That was fast. Did you get what I asked for?"

She grimaced. "Yes, the staff or wand hands of three magic users. The city is less secure than I would like it to be, and I had to take their armor and coin to stop the guards from being suspicious." she replied, bringing them out of her bag. "You're sure these will work? You told me that the previous set of bones were simian if I remember."

Jonathan took them eagerly and started removing the intricately inscribed gauntlets from the desiccated undead limbs. "Yes, of course. When I said monkey, I meant Popobawa demons. Magical baboons that sodomize and eat people in Africa. They're popular summons for this sort of thing because as a subspecies of Wendigo they fill out the same requirements for voodoo type magic while reversing the ethical concerns involved with murder." He explained, snatching a fruit knife that had been brought with a bowl of fresh fruit earlier and beginning to pare away the rotted flesh. "They also happen to be summon-capable which is really convenient. Elf bones should be just as good. Better even because they aren't mutant monsters, they died and then were used for various dark magics afterwards. Should be a cleaner focus than what I was using before. "

She nodded slowly, mind moving unbidden to the numerous necromantic rituals she'd seen as a slave of Dar'Khan. There was a splashing of water and she looked over to see the object of her thoughts wrapping 'himself' in a towel through the door. The surrealism of the situation was making her deeply uncomfortable as Jonathan hummed and went about his grisly work. Shaking herself she steeled her heart. A feat made more difficult by a living body and lack of adrenaline. A fresh one at that, without her conditioned responses as an accomplished enchantress.

Speaking of which... She moved over to where Ysolde was now examining Jonathan's Black Tome. This... lap-top. It was like a book without pages, one inner cover set with rune-stones and the other a glowing illusion. She watched carefully as Ysolde clumbsily manipulated a tassel made of similar black material to change the image in the illusion, showing page after page of of arcane lore. Remarkable.

Fragile though, from what she remembered of Jonathan's insistence over it's handling during her time in charge of his body.

"Jonathan?"

"Hmm?" the boy asked, now examining the first set of Knuckle bones for excess flesh.

"What is the hard black material used in your 'lap-top' Tome?" She asked, curiosity burning now that survival, pain and revenge no longer clouded her mind. "What is it that allows it such essence density?"

He looks over, confusion writ large on his expression. "Huh? Oh, OH!" Then he laughed. "The cover. Right. Thats Rubber and Plastic, both plant extracts. They're not what make it work though. Inside is a, ah, how to explain... a complex ritual of copper, quartz and storm magic. I can go over it with you later, but the magic you're feeling is a series of blessings I put on it ever week to up the memory and processing capacity..." at her raised eyebrow he elaborated "er, wisdom and intelligence. How fast it can think and how many simultaneous lines of thought it can hold onto at the same time. The category of device it is is called a Computer. From what you've told me about the Gnomes, they probably have a few of these in their country, but _HUGE_ and not nearly as useful."

Ysolde laughed. "Not nearly as useful, hah! I can't wait to see you in Gnomeregan. They'll murder you, out of envy or wounded pride I can only guess. I've heard of computers, they use Punch-cards, levers and are about the size of this tower." Then s/he saw Jonathan's face and laughed even harder at the horror reflected there.

"Forton and Cobol analytical engines?" The geek asked, incredulous. "I'm not certain whether to be impressed a Medieval world has one of those or horrified anyone decided to use those piles of garbage. Baby steps I guess. I'm not sure IBM even employs anybody who remembers those relics. How prevalent are they?"

Ysolde laughs even harder, clutching 'his' sides and Lynnette takes the opportunity to steal the laptop from 'him'. Staring at the glowing 'pages' with reverence, she takes the mouse and begins copying Ysoldes former actions, rolling the wheel down and dragging the tassel across the silk sheets.

Jonathan meanwhile goes back to cleaning the bones and trying his best to ignore the creeping horror of the what Darkwhispers laughter implies. A city run by punch-cards. If not more.

Those poor people.

After Ysolde recovers, s/he begins teaching Lynnette what Jonathan had shown and explained to 'him' over the last couple of hours. The trio work in quiet parallel until Starpetal returns.

Jonathan looks up at him. "Salt?"

The elven professor nods, pulling a large sack out of his pack and throwing it at the smaller boy. Jonathan catches it with his forearms and an ' _oof!'_ while Starpetal moves to the ornate dark-wood desk across from the foot of the expansive bed. "There's a family down by the docks who makes it in lotts to pay for their protection and livlihood. You'd be surprised how much salt a city needs. Talked my ear off about it while the fire runes worked their magic. Anyway, I was able to acquire a voucher for the armory from one of Lor'Themar's functionaries" he explained to the now attentive group "As Lynnette predicted, the dismal state of affairs has been good for us. Recovered artifacts from houses and skirmishes with the undead have left silvermoon with a surplus of fine items. Many of them are being used to teach the surviving populace how to extract and consume arcane energy in the absence of the sunwell as a supplement to Mana Crystal Production at the Spire. I also got a look at those green crystals the wretched told us about. Here," he tossed another crystal to Jonathan "see what you can make of it."

Jonathan caught the gem, a harmless looking Emerald in one hand, having put down his knife and bones along with the salt. Holding it up to his eye he observed it closely, noting the dancing inner light he hadn't noticed before in the lighted room. Shrugging he crushed it in his fist and felt the surge of power flow down his arm and into his stomach. The rush of heady power caused him to gasp and then cough like a smoker. "Gak! Oh, wow, ah... That's... foul. Wow... I can see why the wretched described it as burning."

Davion scowled at him. "That was reckless." Then he shook his head. "What can you tell us. It feels... familiar, but I'm not certain."

"Right, ah, I'm used to a more mixed bag of energies rather than the pure stuff you guys are, but I'd say this tastes like the dark'fallen. I suppose that makes sense though..."

Davion eyes him suspiciously. "So it's dark magic then?"

"Huh?" Jonathan asked nonplussed. "Right, I haven't told you guys yet. Thought you woulda guessed though, given what you already told me about outland and the Guards mentioning it earlier. Your Prince and Rommath are sacrificing Demons and storing their souls in those green gems. That's what's powering the city right now. It's got a surprising amount of other magic in it though. It tasted pretty heavily of Blood and Order magic too. I think the Blood Magic is how they're balancing the order and chaos together and making them safe for mortal consumption. Pure chaos wouldn't hold it's shape for more than a few moments. Too hard to control."

The silence in the room was deadly, charged with a tension pouring out of the three elves.

"We should tell someone, shouldn't we?" Ysolde asked. "I mean, there may be a reason for it, like the Scourge Gargoyles." S/he looks at Jonathan. "You said they were sacrificing them, right? So it's not like they're in league with the Legion?"

"No, Human," Lynnette replies, quiet. "It'd be like us revealing we were recently undead and intended to continue using Necromancy. If the higher ups didn't execute us on the spot, then the mobs would try to tear us apart as members of the Cult of the Damned. Or run in panic thinking us more of the likes of Arthas and Dar'khan. If the public finds out that their leaders are feeding them demon souls..."

"It'll be civil war" Davion finishes coldly.

Jonathan winced. _This would be a really bad time to tell them the scheme sorta impressed me._ "That'd be a bad thing at this point I guess?"

Starpetal snorted derisively and Darkwhisper guffawed.

"Jonathan? You have a gift for understatement." Lynnette offers voice sad. Then she barks out a laugh. "I suppose it's ironic and hypocritical though, considering we're helping you summon a demon so we can feed people it's blood." The small human opened his mouth and the fiery elf raised a hand to stop him. "I know, your demons are different from ours. You have my trust for sticking staying when you could have left and resurrecting us all, but I'll believe it when I've had a chance to examine them for myself."

Jonathan gulped and nodded. "Well, I suppose it's time for the last ingredient. The target. Moh'Ra are assassins and must always be summoned with a target in mind. An image, a lock of hair, a bit of clothing. Ysolde, I was hoping you knew what Kel'thuzad looked like? Or maybe someone else from that necromancy school you talked about earlier." S/he hesitated and then nodded. "Do you think you could draw me a picture? Make sure you're really, _really_ focused on your memories of him as you draw. Without a proper photograph or item for sympathy that'll be the most important part."

The new man nodded and got up from the bed. "I'll see what I can do. It... may be sloppy. Art isn't one of my hobbies unless it's a ritual design, and this body is different than either of my previous."

"Just do what you can and meditate on Kel'Thuzad." Jonathan instructs. "I'll prepare the ritual." He looks to the other two, "did you get anything from the city that could restrain say... an angry orc? Moh'Ra are typically loyal, to the man providing the salt, but they don't like being summoned by the 'good guys'."

This time, the two elves break out in grins. "It's time to introduce you to good elven enchanting."


End file.
